A  HISTORY  OF  THE 
IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


W.B.WELLS  and    N.  MARLOWE 


A  HISTORY 


OF  THE 


IRISH  REBELLION 
OF    191 6 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/historyofirishreOOwell 


A  HISTORY 

OF  THE 

IRISH  REBELLION 
OF  1 9 1 6 


BY 

WARRE    B.  WELLS 

AND 

N.  MARLOWE 


«.T?fTrr  kll 


NEW  YORK 
FREDERICK    A.  STOKES  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 
1917 


OV  J0B.  DUBLIN ,  IRELAND. 


PREFATORY  NOTE 


The  purpose  of  the  Authors  is,  first,  to  present  an 
account  of  the  Rebellion  in  its  relation  to  the 
European  War,  which  shall  be  accurate  and  com- 
prehensive, and  may  serve,  it  is  hoped,  as  a  stan- 
dard record  of  this  episode  in  Irish  and  European 
History,  and,  secondly,  to  exhibit,  not  to  criticise, 
conflicting  ideals  in  present-day  Ireland. 


PREFATORY  NOTE 


The  purpose  of  the  Authors  is,  first,  to  present  an 
account  of  the  Rebellion  in  its  relation  to  the 
European  War,  which  shall  be  accurate  and  com- 
prehensive, and  may  serve,  it  is  hoped,  as  a  stan- 
dard record  of  this  episode  in  Irish  and  European 
History,  and,  secondly,  to  exhibit,  not  to  criticise, 
conflicting  ideals  in  present-day  Ireland. 


V 


\ 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

Distinguishing  Features  of  the  Rebellion — Its  Association  with 
Germany — Its  Military  Gravity — The  Strategic  Importance 
of  Ireland — As  Illustrated  in  Anglo-Irish  History — Peculiar 
Significance  in  Anglo-German  War — Ireland's  Flank- 
Position — Her  Natural  Harbours — Germany's  Appreciation 
of  the  Value  as  a  European  Factor — First  Hint  of  Possible 
Identity  of  Irish  and  German  Interests — Casement's  Re- 
markable Article  before  the  War — Germany  and  the  Revival 
of  Physical  Force  Movement  in  Ireland — German  Govern- 
ment's Efforts  to  turn  this  Movement  to  Account  in  the 
European  War   1 — 23 

CHAPTER  n. 

The  Theory  of  Sinn  Fein — The  Labour  Movement  in 
Dublin — Opposition  in  Ulster  to  Home  Rule — Formation 
of  Ulster  Volunteers — The  Nationalist  Volunteers — Ques- 
tion of  their  Control — The  Gun  Running  at  Howth    .  24 — 44 


CHAPTER  III. 

r.  Redmond's  Attitude  towards  the  War — His  Authority 
disputed  by  a  Section  of  the  Volunteers — "  Home  Rule  on 
the  Statute  Book  " — Position  of  the  Irish  Volunteers — 
Recruiting  in  Ireland — Ireland  Exempted  from  Compulsory 
Military    Service — The    Spread    of    Discontent — Critical 

!  Days — The  Affray  at  Tullamore — A  Famous  Document  45 — 66 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PAGE 

Reflections  on  the  Character  of  the  Rebellion — Analogy  of  the 
'48  RisingJ— Literary  Influences — Biographical  Notes  on 
the  Nationalist  Leaders — P.  H.  Pearse,  his  Writings  and 
Educational  Work — Professor  McNeill — Sir  Roger  Case- 
ment and  his  Irish  Policy:  the  Impressions  of  an  Eye 
Witness, — Thomas  Clarke — Thomas  McDonagh,  Poet  and 
Literary  Critic — William  Pearse,  Joseph  Plunkett,  Edward 
Daly  and  Michael  O'Hanrahan — Major  McBridc — Eamonn 
Ceannt — Cornelius  Colbert,  Michael  O'MaUin  and  J.  J. 
Heuston — Sean  MacDearmada — James  Connolly  and  his 
Influence — Other  Leaders  67 — 102 


CHAPTER  V. 

A  New  Factor — Influence  of  Irish-American  Organisations  on 
the  Volunteer  Movement — Casement  in  the  United  States — 
His  Earlier  Relations  with  Germany — An  Intermediary  with 
the  Irish-American  Extremists  between  the  Irish  Volunteers 
and  the  German  Government — Volunteers'  Engagement 
with  Germany — Proceedings  of  the  Clan-na-Gael — Casement 
in  Germany — Intrigues  in  the  Prison  Camps — Attempt  to 
raise  an  Irish  Brigade  103 — 114 


CHAPTER  VI. 

Development  of  Seditious  Movement  in  Ireland — Its  Military 
Organisation— Xhe  "  Citizen  Army  " — Attitude  of  the 
Authorities — Ineffective  Measures — Drilling  and  Arming 
of  the  Volunteers — Methods  of  Obtaining  Arms-^lnade- 
quacy  of  Rebel  Armament       .....    115 — 1 


CONTENTS 


xi 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PAGE 

The  Rebels'  Military  Plans — Germany's  Co-operation — A  Well- 
conceived  Design — Scheme  of  a  General  Rising — Its  Success 
Dependent  on  Ample  Supply  of  Arms — Deficiency  to  be 
made  good  by  Germany — Concerted  Operations  of  Rebels 
with  Germany — Effect  of  a  General  Irish  Rising  on  British 
Home  Defence — Diversion  of  British  Strength  to  Exposed 
Flank  in  Ireland — Opportunity  for  a  German  Stroke  across 
the  North  Sea — Casement's  Expedition  a  Vital  Factor  in  the 
Plan  of  Campaign   128 — 134 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
The  Expedition  from  Wilhelmshaven — The  Aud  :   Capture  of 
Casement — Decision  of  Irish  Executive — Volunteer  Coun- 
cil— Action  of  Mr.  John  MacNeill     ....    135 — 146 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Proclamation  of  Republic — 'Character  of  the  Fighting — Defence 
of  the  Post  Office — Trinity  College — Lord  Wimborne's 
Proclamation — Attitude  of  the  People — Second  Day  of 
Rising — Mount  Street  Bridge — Arrival  of  Sir  John  Maxwell 
— Surrender  of  Rebels  147 — 177 

CHAPTER  X. 

The  Rebellion  in  the  Provinces — hauses  of  its  Failure — A 
Sporadic  Rising — Events  in  the  Vicinty  of  Dublin — 
frustrated  Attack  on  Skerries — Desperate  Encounter  at 
Ashbourne — The  Wexford  Rising — Seizure  of  Enniscorthy — 
Surrender  of  Wexford  Rebels — The  Rising  in  Galway — 
Attack  on  Galway  City — ^isbandment  of  Galway  Rebels — 
Other  Southern  Counties  Affected-^Lffects  of  Miscarriage  of 
Casement  Expedition — Precautions  in  Ulster — Operations 
of  Mobile  Columns — Measures  of  Pacification — Surrender  of 
Arms — Military,  Civilian  and  Rebel  Casualties  .       .    178 — 201 


xii 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  XI. 

PAGE 

The  Aftermath  of  the  Rebellion — Causes  of  Re-action  in  Rebel 
favour — Execution  of  the  Leaders — Arrests  and  Deporta- 
tions— Revulsion  of  Popular  Feeling — Attitude  of  Irish- 
Americans — Mr.  Asquith's  Visit  to  Ireland — Movement 
toward  Settlement — A  Propitious  Moment — Mr.  Lloyd 
George's  Scheme — Causes  of  its  Failure — Reconstitution 
of  Dublin  Castle — An  Unanswered  Question     .       .    202 — 217 


ArPENDICES 


219—271 


A  HISTORY  OF 

THE  IRISH  REBELLION 

of  191 6 

CHAPTER  I. 

IRELAND'S    STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE 

The  Irish  Rebellion  of  1916  was  invested  with 
a  peculiar  gravity  and  significance  by  twx>  cir- 
cumstances which  distinguished  it  from  earlier 
insurrections  in  the  modern  history  of  Ireland. 
The  first  was  the  German  connexion.  The 
national  instinct  of  Ireland  has  been,  historically, 
francophile,  and  the  German  name,  throughout 
the  last  century,  was  chiefly  associated  in  the  mind 
of  Nationalists  with  mercenary  troops  employed 
to  combat  the  rising  of  '98.  The  French  tradition 
dated  back  three  centuries  to  the  time  of  the 
rebellion  of  the  great  O'Neills  of  Tyrone.  It  was 
continued  in  the  community  of  arms  of  Irish  and 
French  in  the  days  of  St.  Ruth  and  Sarsfield, 
in  the  deeds  of  the  Irish  Brigade  under  the  French 
flag  at  Fontenoy,  Blenheim,  and  Ramillies, 
when  Irishmen  by  the  ten  thousand  died  in  the 
service  of  France  on  the  battlefields  of  Europe, 
and  later  in  Humbert's  invasion  of  Ireland.  It 
persisted  even  to  1870,  when,  while  Great 
Britain  preserved  a  frigidly  correct  neutrality, 
Irish  sympathy  took  visible  form  in  the  de- 
spatch to  France  of  an  Ambulance  Service,  and 
of  a  combatant  Compagnie  Irlandaise  that,  but 
for  the  restrictions  upon  volunteering  imposed 

A 


2      THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


under  the  British  neutrality  laws,  might  have  ex- 
panded into  a  modern  Irish  Brigade. 

The  idea  of  German-Irish  friendship  was  not, 
however,  altogether  new.  An  attempt,  though 
not  a  very  extended  one,  to  "  educate  "  Ireland 
in  this  sense  had  been  in  progress  for  several  years. 
Observers  in  America  noted  the  increase  of  social 
intercourse  and  intermarriage  among  the  two 
stocks  of  immigrants.*  Two  causes  had  contri- 
buted to  the  decline  of  French  popularity  in 
Ireland :  first,  the  anti-clerical  and  sometimes 
anti-Catholic  policy  of  the  Third  Republic; 
secondly,  the  entente  with  England.  The  entente, 
however,  affected  mainly  those  extremist  Irishmen 
who  continued  to  believe  in  physical  force  and 
wished  to  establish  connexions  with  that  country, 
whatever  its  name,  which,  in  the  event  of  a  Euro- 
pean war,  would  most  likely  be  found  threatening 
Imperial  interests.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
the  general  body  of  the  Irish  people  found  itself 
still  to  some  extent  affected  by  historical  memories 
older  than  those  of  the  quarrel  between  the  Church 
and  the  Third  Republic;  the  appeal  of  Fontenoy 
and  the  Irish  Brigade  helped  considerably  to  pro- 
mote a  pro- Ally  sentiment  throughout  the  country. 
The  Ultramontane  attitude  in  politics  is  not  char- 
acteristic of  modern  Ireland,  and  the  considera- 
tions which  told  at  the  Vatican  in  favour  of  the 

*  The  Parliamentary  Party  endeavoured  after  the  outbreak 
of  war  to  prevent  their  Irish -American  supporters  from  going 
into  alliance  with  the  Germans  of  the  States,  and  the  United 
Irish  League  of  America  finally  adhered  to  Mr.  Redmond's 
policy  of  supporting  the  Allies.  But,  as  illustrating  the 
influence  on  events  of  the  German-Irish  social  rapprochment, 
one  may  mention  the  withdrawal  towards  "  neutrality  "  of 
one  of  Mr.  Redmond's  most  prominent  supporters  in  the 
States,  the  President  of  one  of  his  Leagues.  This  man  had 
married  a  German  wife  ;  he  did  not  go  over  to  the  Clan-na- 
Gael  or  any  of  the  pro-German  Irish  organisations,  but  merely 
withdrew  from  politics  for  the  period  of  the  war. 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  3 


Central  Powers  carried  very  little  weight  with  the 
most  Catholic  people  in  Europe.*  It  remains 
true,  therefore,  broadly  speaking,  that  it  was 
historically  unnatural  to  find  a  body  of  Irishmen 

*  Formerly  it  was  different.  We  recall  how  little  sympathy 
Ireland  (so  far  as  she  was  vocal)  extended  towards  Garibaldi 
and  the  Italian  patriots  in  their  struggle  against  the  Bourbons, 
Austria  and  the  Papal  Power.  Ultramontanism  in  Ireland 
seems  to  have  been  finally  overthrown  at  the  time  of  the  Land 
League.  But  in  any  case  it  would  be  difficult  to  credit  Ireland 
with  a  principled  "  foreign  policy."  The  revolutionaries  in 
the  nineteenth  century  looked  generally  to  France  and  to 
America  as  authors  of  the  Rights  of  Man.  But  revolutionaries 
were  a  minority  of  the  people — in  '48  and  in  '67  as  in  1916. 
Of  the  most  typical  of  physical  force  Nationalists,  John 
Mitchel,  a  Frenchman  (the  late  Emile  Montegut)  wrote  : — 
"  He  is  less  revolutionary  than  the  average  English  shop- 
keeper .  .  .  less  versed  in  Liberal  ideas  than  the  most 
obstinate  monarchist  on  the  Continent.  .  .  .  He  is 
revolutionary  on  the  surface,  in  his  accent  and  expression,  but 
not  in  spirit  or  in  principle.  Nor  is  the  obstinate  attachment 
of  the  Irish  to  Catholicism  calculated  to  conquer  the  sympathies 
of  the  Radicals.  In  short,  neither  the  extreme  nor  the  moder- 
ate sections  of  society  set  store  on  Ireland,  and  she  finds 
them  in  turn  indifferent  or  lukewarm  towards  her  cause. 
(Mitchel)  applauds  Mazzini,  the  enemy  of  Catholicism  ;  like- 
wise he  would  applaud  an  Ultramontane  Bishop  of  Ireland 
blessing  the  standards  of  a  Celtic  insurrection.  He  salutes 
the  French  Republic  with  hope.  ...  On  his  arrival 
in  America  he  learns  the  news  from  the  East,  and  he 
echoes  the  warlike  trumpets  of  the  Czar  which  resound 
on  the  Danube.  In  each  of  these  events  he  hears  the 
good  news :  England's  agony."  It  might  be  argued, 
however,  in  regard  to  the  events  of  1916,  that  the  Irish 
revolutionists  were  obsessed  by  the  Idea  of  Nationality, 
and  in  this  respect  resembled  in  some  degree  the  makers  of 
modern  Germany  (in  so  far  as  these  conceived  of  the  world  as 
being  divided  necessarily  into  mutually  hostile  race  entitities)  ; 
which  the  Allies,  on  the  other  hand,  asserted  a  principle  of 
European  solidarity  of  interests.  Nevertheless,  there  is  the 
irony  of  human  affairs  in  the  salutation  of  an  autocratic 
Kaiser  as  Prince  Charming  by  a  group  of  revolutionists  who 
proposed  to  set  up  a  co-operative  Commonwealth  based  (vide 
the  Republican  Proclamation)  on  adult  (male  and  female) 
suffrage. 


4       THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


allied  with  Prussia  in  the  European  war  which 
had  begun  with  the  invasion  of  Belgium  and 
France. 

In  the  next  place,  the  moral  gravity  of  the 
Rebellion  was  fully  matched  by  its  military 
gravity;  for  it  exposed  Great  Britain  to  a  dis- 
advantage which,  serious  as  it  would  have  been 
if  she  had  been  engaged  in  war  with  any  other 
Power,  was  vastly  more  serious  when  she  was 
engaged  in  war  with  Germany.  Strategic  geo- 
graphy, especially  in  relation  to  sea  power,  is  not 
a  subject  which  the  average  British  citizen  has 
been  trained  to  regard  with  intelligent  interest. 
His  lack  of  acquaintance  with  Ireland's  history, 
and  the  fact  that  her  foreign  relations  have  long 
been  merged  with  those  of  the  neighbouring  island, 
tend  further  to  obscure  his  realisation  of  the 
strategic  importance  of  Ireland.  Yet  the  most 
cursory  glance  at  Irish  military  history  serves  to 
show  how  capital  is  that  importance,  and  it  is 
emphasised  by  the  frequency  of  the  occasions, 
during  the  period  when  Great  Britain  enjoyed  a 
complete  immunity  from  invasion,  on  which  the 
soldiers  of  foreign  Powers  have  landed  and  fought 
on  Irish  soil. 

The  menace  which  an  Ireland  in  unfriendly 
hands  offered  to  the  flank  of  Great  Britain  may 
be  traced  as  far  back  as  Roman  times.  During 
the  period  of  the  decline  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
when  its  hold  upon  Great  Britain  was  relaxing, 
we  constantly  hear,  both  from  native  and  Roman 
sources,  of  the  excursions  of  the  "  Scots  "  (the 
conventional  appellation  of  the  Irish  Gaels)  to 
Britain  and  Gaul,  which  seem  to  have  been  almost 
as  much  dreaded  as  were  those  of  the  Danes  in 
later  days.  The  most  formidable  of  these  in- 
vasions were  led  by  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages, 
the  last  but  one  of  the  Pagan  Kings  of  Ireland, 
who  on  one  occasion  collected  a  great  fleet  and 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE 


5 


landed  in  Wales,  whence,  though  forced  to  retreat 
by  the  Roman  General,  Stilicho,  he  carried  off 
immense  plunder  ;  it  was  in  another  of  Niall's 
excursions  to  Britain  that  St.  Patrick  was  taken 
captive  to  Ireland.  It  was,  of  course,  the  wane 
of  Roman  power  which  made  these  Irish  invasions 
of  Britain  more  frequent  and  daring;  and  it  is 
not  to  be  supposed  that,  if  they  had  not  been 
beset  by  growing  difficulties  nearer  home,  the 
Romans  would  not  have  made  some  attempt  at 
punitive  action  across  the  Irish  Sea.  In  a  later 
century  the  Danish  grip  upon  the  main  strong- 
holds of  the  Irish  coast  contributed  powerfully 
to  the  extension  of  the  Danes'  sway  over  the  north- 
western counties  of  England.  The  influence  upon 
the  Danish  wars  in  England  of  Brian  Boru's 
victon-  at  Clontarf  on  Good  Friday,  1014,  which, 
by  virtually  extinguishing  the  Danes'  power  in 
Ireland,  deprived  them  of  their  Irish  bases,  has 
not  been  adequately  estimated  by  any  English 
historian  of  the  period.  It  was,  perhaps,  some 
dawning  realisation  of  the  strategic  importance 
of  Ireland  in  relation  to  his  own  kingdom  that, 
a  hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  secured  Henry 
EL'a  ready  assent  to  the  freebooting  expedition 
of  Richard  de  Clare,  Earl  of  Pembroke — better 
known  as  Strongbow — which  first  started  the 
English  upon  their  four  centuries'  career  of  con- 
quest in  Ireland. 

Certainly  the  British  Government's  constant 
fear,  from  the  time  of  Henry  VIII.  onwards,  of 
the  danger  to  which  Great  Britain  was  exposed 
by  hostile  expeditions  to  Ireland  explains.,  if  it 
does  not  at  all  excuse,  the  merciless  severity  with 
which  Irish  rebellions  were  suppressed,  and  in 
part,  indeed,  explains  its  general  Irish  policy. 
It  governed  the  people  by  force,  and  kept  them 
down  to  prevent  them  from  giving  aid  to  an  in- 
vader, with  the  inevitable  consequence  of  its 


6      THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


harshness  that  any  invader,  no  matter  from 
what  quarter,  would  have  been  welcomed  and 
aided  by  the  native  Irish  and  Anglo-Irish. 
The  vicious  circle  in  which  its  policy  revolved 
had  the  further  result  that  ''if  a  chief,  encouraged 
by  the  prospect  of  help  from  abroad,  rose  in 
rebellion,  it  was  not  enough,  as  it  would  be  under 
ordinary  circumstances,  to  reduce  him  to  submis- 
sion, inflict  reasonable  punishment,  and  take 
guarantees  for  future  good  behaviour.  He  was 
executed  or  banished,  or  brought  prisoner  to 
London ;  and  the  people,  who  were  mostly  blame- 
less, were  expelled  or  exterminated,  and  the  whole 
district  turned  into  a  desert,  in  order  that  an  in- 
vader should  have  neither  help  nor  foothold."* 

Invasions,  or  attempted  invasions,  from  over- 
seas were  nevertheless  more  frequent  than  most 
English  people,  whose  education  in  the  history 
of  the  United  Kingdom  is  limited  almost  exclu- 
sively to  purely  English  affairs,  are  aware.  No 
less  than  three  expeditions  were  fitted  out  at 
foreign  ports  in  1579-80,  when  the  great  Geraldine 
Rebellion  broke  out  for  the  second  time.  The  first, 
equipped  by  the  Pope  on  the  recommendation  of 
Philip  II.  of  Spain,  and  consisting  of  a  small 
squadron  of  three  ships  with  seven  hundred  Italian 
soldiers,  never  reached  Ireland;  for  its  com- 
mander, an  English  adventurer,  by  name  Thomas 
Stukely,  touching  at  Lisbon  on  his  voyage,  joined 
another  expedition  led  by  the  King  of  Portugal. 
The  second,  led  from  Spain  by  Fitzmaurice,  who 
was  accompanied  by  the  Pope's  legate,  Dr. 
Sanders,  landed  at  the  little  harbcur  of  Smerwick, 
in  Kerry,  where  it  took  possession  of  the  fort  of 
Dunanore,  perched  on  top  of  a  rock  jutting  into 
the  sea ;  this,  however,  was  a  small  affair  in  which 
only  eighty  Spanish  soldiers  were  engaged.  The 
third  expedition  consisted  of  seven  hundred 
*  Joyce,  "  History  of  Ireland,"  Part  IV.,  Chap.  I. 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE 


Spaniards  and  Italians  who  landed  in  October, 
1580,  from  four  vessels  at  Smerwick,  and  also 
occupied  the  fort  of  Dunanore,  where,  after 
waiting  for  six  weeks  in  the  hope  of  a  rising  by  the 
neighbouring  peasantry — who,  however,  had  been 
too  thoroughly  crushed  to  join  the  invaders — the 
force  was  invested  by  land  and  sea,  and  slaught- 
ered en  masse  by  Lord  Grey  upon  its  surrender. 

Twentv  years  later,  during  the  rebellion  of 
Hugh  O'Neill,  the  great  Earl  of  Tyrone,  on  the 
23rd  of  September,  1601,  a  Spanish  fleet  entered 
the  harbour  of  Kinsale  with  three  thousand  four 
hundred  troops  under  the  command  of  Don  Juan 
del  Aguila.  The  Spaniards  immediately  took 
possession  of  the  town  and  of  the  castles  of  Balti- 
more. Castlehaven,  and  Dunboy.  Del  Aguila 
was  besieged,  but  the  northern  earls  came  to  his 
support  in  a  famous  march  southwards,  and  the 
English  army  of  investment  was  itself  besieged 
in  turn.  Finally,  by  good  luck  more  than  any- 
thing else,  the  issue  was  decided  in  its  favour  in 
the  battle  of  Kinsale,  and  del  Aguila  surrendered 
and  returned  to  Spain,  after  having  maintained 
himself  in  Ireland  for  more  than  three  months. 
During  the  gre^t  rebellion  beginning  in  1641.  in 
which  Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  nephew  of  the  famous 
Earl  of  Tyrone,  was  the  outstanding  figure,  the 
banished  Irishmen  who  had  risen  to  positions  of 
great  influence  in  the  service  of  France,  Spain  and 
the  Netherlands  used  their  best  efforts  to  secure 
foreign  support.  O'Neill  himself  at  the  outset 
held  out  hope  of  French  help  from  Cardinal 
Richelieu,  and,  though  no  large  bodies  of  foreign 
troops  actually  landed  in  Ireland,  landings  of 
officers,  arms  and  stores  from  overseas  were 
frequent. 

If  we  leave  aside  for  a  moment  these  two  great 
episodes  of  Irish  military  history  which  most 
strikingly  emphasise  the  strategic  interdepen- 


8       THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


dence  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland — the  Crom- 
wellian  war  and  the  war  of  William  and  James — 
the  tale  of  foreign  expeditions  to  Ireland  is  taken 
up  again  with  the  expedition  of  Thurot  in  1759-60. 
At  this  time  a  French  army  of  invasion  was 
collected  at  Vannes  in  Brittany,  which  was  to  be 
conveyed  by  a  powerful  fleet  anchored  at  Brest 
under  Admiral  Conflans,  while  a  smaller  squadron 
of  five  vessels  lay  at  Dunkirk  under  Thurot,  an 
Irishman,  whose  real  name  was  O'Farrell.  Con- 
flans was  intercepted  and  defeated  by  Hawke  off 
Quiberon  Bay  on  the  night  of  November  14th; 
Thurot  eluded  the  British  patrol,  and,  after  being 
driven  by  storms  to  Bergen  in  Norway,  appeared 
with  three  ships  off  Carrickfergus  in  February. 
He  disembarked  with  about  a  thousand  men, 
attacked  the  castle  and  compelled  it  to  surrender, 
and,  being  unable  to  secure  there  enough  provi- 
sions for  his  starving  forces,  obtained  them  from 
Belfast  under  threat  of  burning  both  that  town 
and  Carrickfergus.    After  five  days  the  French 
re-embarked,  and  were  subsequently  intercepted 
and  engaged  off  the  Isle  of  Man,  when  Thurot  was 
killed  and  his  ships  captured.     Finally,  the 
Rebellion  of  1798   was   undertaken   with  the 
promise  of  foreign  support.    In  1796  Wolfe  Tone 
arranged  in  Paris  for  a  French  invasion,  and  in 
December  of  that  year  a  fleet  of  forty-three  ships 
of  war,  with  fifteen  thousand  troops  and  forty-five 
thousand  stand  of  arms,  sailed  from  Brest  for 
Ireland  under  General  Hoche.     The  fleet  was 
separated  by  bad  weather;  sixteen  ships  only 
anchored  in  Bantry  Bay,  where,   as  the  bad 
weather  continued  and  Hoche  had  not  come  up, 
they  cut  their  cables  after  a  week  and  returned 
to  France.  In  the  following  year  another  abortive 
attempt  at  invasion  followed  with  the  sailing  from 
Ireland  of  a  Dutch  fleet  with  fifteen  thousand  men 
under  Admiral  de  Winter — an  attempt  which  was 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE 


9 


utterly  defeated  at  Camperdown.  Too  late  to 
assist  the  rebellion  in  1798,  General  Humbert  with 
a  French  force  of  rather  more  than  a  thousand  men 
landed  at  Killala  in  County  Mayo,  and,  after 
dispersing  a  force  of  militia,  was  surrounded  and 
surrendered  at  Ballinamuck  in  County  Longford. 
Soon  afterwards  a  larger  French  expedition,  under 
Admiral  Bompart,  with  nine  ships  and  three 
thousand  men,  was  engaged  and  defeated  off 
Lough  S willy. 

Humbert's  was  the  last  French  expedition  which 
landed  in  Ireland,  but  it  was  not  the  last  which 
contemplated  such  a  landing.  Robert  Emmet, 
when  he  arrived  in  Ireland  in  1802  to  organise  the 
insurrection  of  the  following  year,  had  just  re- 
turned from  France,  and  had  hopes  of  aid  from 
Napoleon;  it  was  the  accidental  explosion  of  one 
of  his  ammunition  depots  which  precipitated  the 
rising  in  July,  1803,  instead  of  in  August,  by 
which  time  he  expected  invasion  from  France. 
In  that  August  Nelson  wrote  to  Addington: — 
"  My  station  to  the  westward  of  Toulon,  an  un- 
usual one,  has  been  taken  upon  the  idea  that  the 
French  fleet  is  bound  out  of  the  Straits,  and  pro- 
bably to  Ireland."  In  October  he  wrote : — "Their 
destination,  is  it  Ireland,  or  the  Levant  ?  That  is 
what  I  want  to  know/'  Collingwood  is  quoted 
by  Mahan  as  being  equally  convinced  that 
Napoleon's  ultimate  objective  for  Villeneuve's 
fleet  was  Ireland.  Mahan  maintained  that  as  late 
as  January,  1805,  Nelson  fully  believed  that  "  if 
the  enemy  left  the  Mediterranean,  they  would 
proceed  to  Ireland." 

The  Cromwellian  war  and  the  war  of  William 
and  James,  however — especially  the  latter — most 
strongly  emphasise  Ireland's  strategic  import- 
ance for  Great  Britain.  In  the  first,  no  overseas 
expedition  on  the  Royalist  side  reached  Ireland, 
if  we  except  Prince  Rupert's  arrival  in  February, 


10     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


1649,  in  the  harbour  of  Kinsale,  with  sixteen 
frigates.  But  Cromwell's  strong  sense  of  the  in- 
security of  his  position  in  England,  while  Ireland 
on  her  flank  remained  in  Royalist  hands;  the 
extreme  ferocity  with  which  he  waged  the  war  in 
Ireland;  and  lastly,  the  ruthless  policy  of  whole- 
sale expropriation  under  which  he  offered  a  large 
proportion  of  the  people  of  three  provinces  the 
alternatives  of  "Hell  or  Connacht  " — all  these 
attest  his  determination,  justified  after  the  German 
manner  of  "  military  necessity,"  however  repul- 
sive in  its  moral  aspect,  that  the  Royalists  and 
their  foreign  supporters  should  be  left  no  foothold 
in  Ireland  for  a  flank  attack  upon  Great  Britain. 

In  the  war  of  William  and  James  the  succession 
was  decided  in  Ireland.  William  took  possession 
of  the  Throne  of  England  almost  without  opposi- 
tion, but  he  had  to  fight  for  Ireland,  and  he  was 
not  secure  as  King  of  England  until  he  had  fought 
for  her  and  won  her.  The  events  of  the  war  are 
too  well  known,  even  by  those  whose  general 
knowledge  of  Irish  history  is  most  defective,  to 
need  recapitulation  here.  It  will  be  more  to  the 
purpose  to  invoke  the  testimony  of  the  writer  who 
first  defined  for  the  English-speaking  peoples  the 
principles  of  sea-power — Admiral  Mahan.  The 
quotation  must  be  prefaced  by  a  correction  of 
detail  unimportant  in  its  bearing  on  his  argument, 
but  necessary  for  the  sake  of  historical  accuracy. 
In  his  reference  in  the  following  passage  to  the 
Battle  of  the  Boyne,  he  ignores  the  fact  that  it 
was  not  until  nearly  a  year  after  that  battle  that 
the  French  General  St.  Ruth  arrived  in  the 
Shannon  with  a  fleet  to  take  command  of  the  Irish 
army;  and  French  support  continued  to  arrive 
until  after  the  signing  of  the  Treaty  of  Limerick, 
when  Sarsfield,  with  a  fine  sense  of  honour  which 
was  ill  repaid  by  the  subsequent  breaches  of  the 
Treaty  on  the  English  side,  refused  to  receive  a 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  11 


French  fleet  of  eighteen  ships  of  the  line  and  thirty 
transports,  which  sailed  up  the  Shannon  with  two 
hundred  officers,  three  thousand  soldiers  and  arms, 
and  ammunition  for  ten  thousand  men.  "When." 
says  Mahan,  "  the  sea  not  only  borders  or  sur- 
rounds, but  also  separates  a  country  into  two  or 
more  parts,  the  control  of  it  becomes  not  only  de- 
sirable but   vitally  necessary  The 

Irish  Sea,  separating  the  British  Islands,  rather 
resembles  an  estuary  than  an  actual  division,  but 
history  has  shown  the  dangers  from  it  to  the 
United  Kingdom.  In  the  days  of  Louis  XIV.. 
when  the  French  navy  nearly  equalled  the  com- 
bined British  and  Dutch,  the  gravest  complica- 
tions existed  in  Ireland,  which  passed  almost 
wholly  under  the  control  of  the  natives  and  the 
French;  nevertheless  the  Irish  Sea  was  rather  a 
danger  to  the  English — a  weak  point  in  their 
communications — than  an  advantage  to  the 
French.  The  latter  did  not  venture  their  ships 
of  the  line  in  its  narrow  waters,  and  expeditions 
intending  to  land  were  directed  upon  the  ocean 
ports  in  the  South  and  West.  At  the  supreme 
moment  the  great  French  fleet  was  sent  to  the 
south  coast  of  England,  where  it  decisively  de- 
feated the  Allies,  and  at  the  same  time  twenty-five 
frigates  were  sent  to  St.  George's  Channel  against 
the  English  communications.  In  the  midst  of  a 
hostile  people,  the  English  Army  in  Ireland  was 
seriously  imperilled,  but  was  saved  by  the  Battle 
:  the  Boyne,  and  the  flight  of  James  EL  This 
movement  against  the  enemy's  communications 
was  strictly  strategic,  and  would  be  just  as 
dangerous  to  England  now  as  in  1690."'* 

The  policy  which,  on  the  one  hand,  influenced 
Great  Britain's  enemies,  whether  in  concert  with 
Irish  rebels  or  not,  to  attack  her  again  and  again 

*  Mahan.  "  The  Influence  of  Sea-power  upon  History,'1 
Chap.  L,  pp.  40-41. 


12     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


through  her  flank  in  Ireland,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  influenced  successive  British  Governments 
to  employ  every  possible  means,  fair  or  foul,  to 
avert  or  minimise  this  constant  menace,  was  based 
upon  the  appreciation  on  either  side  of  the  capital 
importance  of  Ireland's  geographical  situation  in 
relation  to  the  maritime  communications  of  the 
world.  "  If  the  map  be  examined  with  an  eye  to 
traffic,"  says  one  of  the  most  distinguished  of 
Great  Britain's  few  students  of  strategic  geo- 
graphy, "  it  will  be  found  that  it  consists  of  large 
areas  where  the  possible  routes  are  numerous  and 
widely  spread,  so  that  if  one  line  of  communication 
be  cut,  the  supplies  can  be  directed  to  another,  and 
small  areas,  where  surrounding  obstacles  compel 
all  traffic  to  pass  along  a  narrow  avenue,  the  lines 
of  communication  leading  from  many  bases 
coalescing  in  one  common  defile.  These  small 
areas  constitute  most  of  the  strategic  positions  of 
the  world.  The  sea  defile  or  strait  is  particularly 
important,  because  the  approach  of  the  opposite 
shores  generally  makes  the  position  one  which  is 
not  only  a  crossing-place  of  traffic,  but  of  the  two 
kinds  of  traffic,  land  and  sea,  and  thus  of  import- 
ance to  the  operation  of  both  fleets  and  armies. 
Every  defile  causes  a  joining,  crossing  and  de- 
flection of  routes. "# 

The  British  Isles,  as  a  geographical  unit, 
command  such  a  joining,  crossing  and  deflection 
of  routes,  and,  in  the  internal  geographical  economy 
of  that  unit,  Ireland  occupies  a  peculiarly  domin- 
ating flank  position.  The  command  of  one  of  the 
most  important  groupings  of  sea  communications 
in  the  world  confers  on  the  United  Kingdom  an 
especially  valuable  advantage  when  that  King- 

*  Vaughan  Cornish,  "  The  Strategic  Geography  of  the 
British  Empire."  Royal  Colonial  Institute  Journal,  Feb- 
ruary, 1916. 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  13 


dom  is  contesting  with  Germany  for  the  control 
of  sea  communications  between  itself  and  its 
Dominions,  and  with  the  country  (France)  where 
its  largest  expeditionary  force  has  to  be  reinforced 
and  supplied.  The  island  of  Great  Britain  restricts 
the  entrance  to  the  North  Sea  to  a  strait  of  some 
eighteen  nautical  miles  between  Kent  and  France, 
and  a  passage  of  about  two  hundred  and  fifty 
nautical  miles  between  Scotland  and  Norway.  So 
long  as  these  two  passages  were  held,  ships  based 
on  the  harbours  of  Germany  could  not  interfere 
with  the  communications  between  the  outside 
world  and  the  southern  or  western  ports  of  the 
British  Isles.  The  holding  of  the  shortest  line 
between  the  north  of  Scotland  and  Norway,  how- 
ever, did  not  suffice  for  the  commercial  blockade 
of  Germany,  since  there  lies  a  long  stretch  of 
Scandinavian  coast  to  the  north  of  it,  and  another 
patrol  line  was  held  for  commercial  blockade. 
This  ran  from  the  Orkneys  to  the  eastern  ex- 
tremity of  Iceland,  and  thence  beyond  the  Arctic 
circle  to  the  fringe  of  the  polar  ice — a  distance  of 
some  seven  hundred  and  fifty  nautical  miles. 

Such  was  the  strategic-geographical  situation 
of  the  United  Kingdom  vis-a-vis  Germany  in  the 
great  war.  In  the  paper  to  which  reference  has 
been  made  Dr.  Vaughan  Cornish  laid  emphasis 
upon  the  capital  importance  in  this  situation  of 
the  position  of  Ireland.  That  island  stands  to 
Great  Britain  in  the  same  relation  as  Great 
Britain  does  to  Germany — across  the  line  of  sea 
routes  to  all  the  nations.  The  passage  between 
Cape  Clear,  in  Ireland,  at  the  western  entrance 
to  St.  George's  Channel,  and  Ushant  off  the  coast 
of  Brittany,  is  the  same  width,  about  two  hundred 
and  fifty  nautical  miles,  as  the  passage  between 
Scotland  and  Norway.  A  shorter  line  held  from 
the  Irish  coast  would  block  the  entrance  to  the 
Bristol   Channel   and  a  yet   shorter  line  the 


14     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


southern  entrance  to  St.  George's  Channel.  Again, 
the  North  Channel  between  Fair  Head,  in  Antrim, 
and  the  Mull  of  Cantyre,  in  Argyll,  is  much  nar- 
rower than  the  Straits  of  Dover,  having  a  width  of 
only  eleven  nautical  miles,  and,  if  this  line  were 
held,  it  would  block  the  northern  entrance  to  all 
the  important  commercial  ports  of  the  western 
coast  of  Great  Britain;  for  there  is  none  in  the 
Western  Highlands  of  Scotland.  There  would 
remain  the  route  round  the  North  of  Scotland 
apparently  open  for  the  use  of  ports  on  the  south 
and  east  coasts  of  Great  Britain;  but,  since  the 
trans-oceanic  ports  lie  further  south,  the  proper 
steaming  tracks  would  pass  close  to  the  north 
coast  of  Ireland.  A  hostile  naval  Power  holding 
Ireland  would,  therefore,  cut  off  Great  Britain 
from  all  overseas  communication. 

There  is,  besides,  a  reverse  aspect  of  the  question 
of  Ireland's  strategic  importance.  The  menace 
of  the  submarine  tends  increasingly  to  drive  the 
fleets  of  large  surface  ships  (on  which  still  rests, 
despite  the  submarine,  the  ultimate  defence  of  sea 
power)  to  bases  further  and  further  from  each 
other  and  more  and  more  impenetrable  to  under- 
water navigation.  Such  bases  exist  in  plenty 
round  the  Irish  coast ;  they  exist  nowhere  else  in 
the  British  Isles-  Their  actual  or  potential  im- 
portance would  have  been  better  appreciated  by 
civilians  if,  before  the  war,  the  project  had 
matured  of  the  Mid-Scotland  Canal,  which  it  was 
proposed  to  construct  as  a  British  equivalent  to 
the  Kiel  Canal.  The  advantage  of  such  a  canal, 
long  urged  by  naval  experts,  is  that,  whereas  the 
great  shipbuilding  bases  of  the  Clyde,  Belfast  and 
iBarrow  are  well  situated  in  respect  of  natural  pro- 
tection from  a  sea  attack  based  on  Continental 
harbours,  the  line  of  naval  communication  between 
these  repair  bases  and  rest  bases  on  the  Irish  coast 
and  the  Fleet's  war  stations  on  the  east  coast  of 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  15 


Scotland  is  singularly  bad ;  for  the  distance  by  the 
northern  route  is  considerable,  and  the  west  coast 
of  the  Highlands,  with  its  deep  indentations  and 
numerous  off -lying  islands,  is,  moreover,  an  almost 
perfect  lair  for  hostile  submarines.  Such  a  canal 
would  increase  the  centrality  of  the  east  coast 
stations,  giving  a  shorter  and  safer  route  for  the 
transfer  of  ships  from  the  gap  between  the  North 
of  Scotland  and  the  Continent  to  that  between  the 
Continent  and  the  South  of  Ireland. 

In  the  absence  of  such  a  visible  object-lesson  as 
the  Mid-Scotland  Canal  would  have  afforded  of 
the  value  for  naval  purposes  of  the  Irish  harbours, 
civilians  are  apt  to  forget  what  magnificent 
shelter  for  fleets  is  offered  by  the  indentation  of 
the  South,  West  and  North  coasts  of  Ireland  by 
long,  sheltered,  deep-water  inlets;  their  advan- 
tage as  harbours  is  obscured  by  the  circumstance 
that  most  of  them  are  distant  from  any  manufac- 
turing or  trading  centre,  and  have,  therefore,  no 
commercial  use.  Although  the  naval  centre  of 
gravity  in  the  great  war  was  the  North  Sea,  the 
Atlantic  would  in  no  circumstances  have  been 
wholly  displaced  from  its  historic  position  in  the 
strategic  distribution  of  the  British  Fleet,  and  the 
Irish  mooring-grounds,  as  has  been  seen  above, 
tended  to  be  replaced  in  their  position  of  importance 
by  the  menace  of  the  submarine.  From  1891  on- 
wards, the  waters  around  Ireland  were  used  for 
manoeuvres  by  what  were  then  known  as  the 
Channel  Squadron  and  the  Atlantic  Squadron. 
In  that  year,  Bantry  Bay  and  Blacksod  Bay  were 
their  respective  bases.  Bantry  Bay  is  four  miles 
across,  and  offers  a  safe  anchorage  for  the  largest 
vessels,  effectively  protected  by  Bere  Island  across 
its  entrance  and  other  islands  off  the  coast. 
Blacksod  Bay  has  possibilities  as  a  naval  base  that 
have  frequently  attracted  attention,  though  they 
have  never  yet  been  developed.      In  one  year's 


16     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


manoeuvres,  the  late  Sir  George  Tryon,  in  com- 
mand of  one  fleet  based  on  Blacksod,  was  known 
as  the  "  Admiral  of  Achill."  His  opponent  of 
that  year  had  one  of  his  bases  in  Lough  Swilly,  a 
magnificent  natural  harbour  for  ships  of  all  sizes ; 
and  Berehaven  in  the  South,  with  its  twelve 
fathoms  of  water  and  its  hill-sheltered  haven,  was 
the  other.  Sligo  Bay,  again,  is  well  sheltered. 
Blacksod  has  a  rival  in  Galway,  which  there  has 
been  much  talk  of  developing  both  as  a  naval  base 
and  as  a  harbour  for  trans-Atlantic  steamers. 
Its  approaches  are  covered  by  the  Aran  Islands 
and  several  smaller  islets  nearer  the  harbour,  and 
its  disadvantage  of  exposure  to  heavy  westerly 
gales  could  be  overcome,  as  the  similar  disadvan- 
tage of  Plymouth  has  been  overcome,  by  the 
construction  of  breakwaters.  The  importance  of 
Ireland's  geographical  position,  in  a  word,  is  fully 
equalled  by  the  natural  advantages  of  her  coast 
line. 

The  immense  importance  as  a  European  factor 
which  her  flank  position  in  relation  to  Great 
Britain  and  the  character  of  her  coasts  confer  upon 
Ireland  was  accurately  assessed  in  a  book  pub- 
lished by  a  Germanised  Briton  in  Berlin  in  the 
summer  of  1916.  The  accompaniment  of  much  dis- 
tortion of  history  does  not  impair  his  argument 
that  Ireland,  as  the  key  to  the  Atlantic,  is  the 
corner-stone  of  the  British  Empire,  and  that 
'  'without  the  possession  of  Ireland,  England  would 
never  have  been  able  to  build  up  her  immense  world 
Empire,  nor  to  acquire  the  virtual  monopoly  of 
the  world's  trade."  * 

It  was  not  only  after  the  outbreak  of  war,  of 
course,  that  the  strategic  significance  of  Ireland 
and  the  possibility  of  turning  this  constant  factor 
of  weakness  in  Great  Britain's  position  to  the 
account  of  Germany  engaged  the  discussion  of 
*  Chatterton-Hill.  Ireland  und  seine  Bed cutung  filr  Europa. 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  17 


German  writers.  Copious  passages  from  the 
work  of  Count  von  Reventlow  and  other  naval  and 
military  writers  could  be  quoted  to  illustrate  the 
interest  which  the  question  aroused  in  the  minds 
of  German  strategists.  It  will  be  more  useful, 
however,  to  quote  a  document  which  is  of  some 
importance  in  determining  the  character  of  the 
rebellion  of  1916. 

In  the  summer  of  1913  there  was  sent  to  General 
Bernhardi  a  copy  of  the  Irish  Review  of  July  of 
that  year,  with  a  request  that  a  remarkable  article 
which  it  contained  might  be  translated  and  widely 
circulated.  The  article  was  entitled,  "  Ireland, 
Germany  and  the  Next  War."  It  was  signed 
"  Shan  Van  Vocht,"  and  is  believed  to  have  been 
written  by  Sir  Roger  Casement.  It  and  General 
Bernhardi's  comments  upon  it  contain  the  first 
indication  of  what  may  be  called  an  Irish  Drang 
nach  Germany,  and  the  first  suggestion  that,  in 
a  European  or  Anglo-German  War,  Germany 
could  count  upon  a  certain  measure  of  support  in 
Ireland;  and  it  offers  some  insight  into  the  men- 
tality of  the  rebels  of  1916  and  some  explanation 
of  their  apparent  belief  that  their  alliance  with 
Germany  and  a  German  victory  would  further, 
and  not  retard,  the  realisation  of  their  aspirations 
towards  the  complete  independence  of  Ireland. 
For  these  reasons  the  article  justifies  quotation 
at  some  length. 

The  writer  in  the  first  place  examined  the 
argument  that  Great  Britain's  defeat  in  a  war 
with  Germany  would  involve  Ireland  in  all  the 
penalties  of  that  defeat.  "The  conclusion  that 
Ireland  must  suffer  all  the  disasters  and  eventual 
losses  defeat  would  entail  on  Great  Britain  is 
based  on  what  may  be  termed  the  fundamental 
maxim  that  has  governed  British  dealings  with 
Ireland  throughout  at  least  three  centuries.  That 
maxim  may  be  given  in  the  phrase  '  Separation 

8 


18     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


is  unthinkable.'  ....  The  British  view  of 
the  fate  of  Ireland  in  the  event  of  British  defeat 
may  be  stated  as  two-fold — only  two  contingen- 
cies are  admitted.  Either  Ireland  would  remain 
after  the  war  as  she  is  to-day,  tied  to  Great 
Britain,  or  she  might  be  (this  is  not  very  seriously 
entertained)  annexed  by  the  victor.  No  other 
solution,  I  think,  has  ever  been  suggested.  Let  us 
discuss  No.  1.  This,  the  ordinary  man-in-the- 
street's,  view  is  that,  as  Ireland  would  be  as  much 
a  part  of  and  belonging  to  Great  Britain  after  a 
war  as  before  it,  whatever  the  termination  of  that 
war  might  be,  she  could  not  fail  to  share  the  losses 
defeat  must  bring  to  a  common  realm.  The  part- 
nership being  indissoluble,  if  the  credit  of  the 
house  were  damaged,  and  its  properties  depre- 
ciated, all  members  of  the  firm  must  suffer.  In 
this  view,  an  Ireland  weaker,  poorer,  and  less 
recuperative  than  Great  Britain,  would  stand  to 
lose  even  more  from  a  British  defeat  than  the 
predominant  partner  himself.  Let  us  at  once 
admit  that  this  view  is  correct.  If  in  the  conclu- 
sion of  a  great  war  Ireland  were  still  to  remain,  as 
she  is  to-day,  an  integral  part  of  a  defeated  United 
Kingdom,  it  is  plain  she  would  suffer,  and  might 
be  made  to  suffer,  possibly  even  more  than  fell  to 
the  share  of  Great  Britain." 

The  writer  proceeded  to  consider  the  other  con- 
tingency which  the  British  view  admitted — the 
annexation  of  Ireland  by  Germany — and  to 
suggest  that  another  alternative  existed.  The 
passage  is  not  without  a  secondary  value  as  out- 
lining the  inherent  weakness  of  Ireland's  military 
position.  "The  chief  end  Germany  would  have 
in  view  in  a  war  with  England  would  be  to  ensure 
her  own  free  future  on  the  seas.  For  with  that 
assured  and  guaranteed  by  victory  over  England, 
all  else  that  she  seeks  must  in  the  end  be  hers.  To 
annex  existing  British  Colonies  would  be  in  itself 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  19 


an  impossible  task — physically  a  much  more  im- 
possible task  than  to  annex  Ireland.  To  annex 
Ireland  would  be,  as  a  military  measure,  once 
command  of  the  sea  was  gainedj  a  comparatively 
easy  task.  No  practical  resistance  to  one  German 
Army  Corps  even  could  be  offered  by  any  force 
Ireland  contains  or  could,  of  herself  f  put  into  the 
field.  No  arsenal  or  means  of  manufacturing 
arms  exists.  The  population  has  been  disarmed 
for  a  century,  and  by  bitter  experience  has  been 
driven  to  regard  the  use  of  arms  as  a  criminal 
offence.  Patriotism  has  been  treated  as  a  felony. 
Volunteers  and  Territorials  are  not  for  Ireland. 
To  expect  that  a  disarmed  and  demoralised  popu- 
lation, who  have  been  sedulously  batoned  into  a 
state  of  moral  and  physical  dejection,  should  de- 
velop military  virtues  in  face  of  a  disciplined 
army,  is  to  attribute  to  Irishmen  the  very  qualities, 
their  critics  unite  in  denying  them.  4  The  Irish- 
man fights  well  everywhere  except  in  Ireland  ' 
has  passed  into  commonplace;  and  since  every 
effort  of  government  has  been  directed  to  ensuring 
the  abiding  application  of  the  sarcasm,  English- 
men would  find  in  the  end  the  emasculating 
success  of  their  rule  completely  justified  in  the 
physical  submission  of  Ireland  to  the  new  force 
that  held  her  down.  With  Great  Britain  cut  off 
and  the  Irish  Sea  held  by  German  squadrons,  no 
power  from  within  could  maintain  any  effective 
resistance  to  a  German  occupation  of  Dublin  and 
a  military  occupation  of  the  island.  To  convert 
that  into  permanent  administration  could  not  be 
opposed  from  within,  and,  with  Great  Britain 
down  and  severed  from  Ireland  by  a  victorious 
German  Navy,  it  is  obvious  that  opposition  to  the 
permanent  retention  of  Ireland  by  the  victor  must 
come  from  without.  It  is  equally  obvious  that 
it  would  come  from  without,  and  it  is  for  this 
international  reason  that,  I  think,  a  permanent 


20     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


German  annexation  of  any  part  of  a  defeated 
United  Kingdom  need  not  be  seriously  considered. 
Such  a  complete  change  in  the  political  geography 
of  Europe  as  a  German-owned  Ireland  could  not 
but  provoke  universal  alarm  and  a  widespread 
combination  to  forbid  its  realisation.  The  bogey 
that  Ireland,  if  not  John  Bull's  other  island,  must 
necessarily  be  somebody  else's  other  island,  will 
not  really  bear  inspection  at  close  quarters." 

"Shan  van  Vocht  "  continued: — -"Germany 
would  have  to  attain  her  end,  the  permanent 
disabling  of  the  maritime  supremacy  of  Great 
Britain,  by  another  and  less  provocative  measure- 
An  Ireland  already  severed  by  a  sea  held  by 
German  warships,  and  temporarily  occupied  by 
a  German  Army,  might  well  be  permanently  and 
irrevocably  severed  from  Great  Britain,  and  with 
common  assent  erected  into  a  neutralised,  inde- 
pendent European  State,  under  international 
guarantees.  An  independent  Ireland  would,  of 
itself,  be  no  threat  or  hurt  to  any  European 
interest.  On  the  contrary,  to  make  of  Ireland  an 
Atlantic  Holland,  a  maritime  Belgium,  would  oe 
an  act  of  restoration  to  Europe  of  this  the  most 
naturally  favoured  of  European  islands  that  a 
Peace  Congress  should,  in  the  end,  be  glad  to  ratify 
at  the  instance  of  a  victorious  Germany.  That 
Germany  should  propose  this  form  of  dissolution 
of  the  United  Kingdom  in  any  interest  but  her 
own,  or  for  the  beaux  yeux  of  Ireland,  I  do  not  for 
a  moment  assert.  Her  main  object  would  be  the 
opening  of  the  seas  and  their  permanent  freeing 
from  that  overwhelming  control  Great  Britain 
has  exercised  since  the  destruction  of  the  French 
Navy,  largely  based,  as  all  naval  strategists 
must  perceive,  upon  the  unchallenged  possession 
of  Ireland. 

"  That  Ireland  is  primarily  a  European  island, 
inhabited  by  a  European  people  who  are  not 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE  21 


English,  and  who  have  for  centuries  appealed  to 
Europe  and  the  world  to  aid  them  in  ceasing  to 
be  politically  controlled  by  England,  is  historic 
fact.  And  since  the  translation  of  this  historic 
fact  into  practical  European  politics  would  un- 
doubtedly affect  the  main  object  of  the  victorious 
Power,  it  is  evident  that,  Great  Britain  once  de- 
feated, Germany  would  carry  the  Irish  question 
to  a  solution  in  harmony  with  her  maritime 
interests,  and  could  count  on  the  great  bulk  of 
European  opinion  to  support  the  settlement  those 
interests  imposed.  And  if  politically  and  econo- 
mically an  independent  and  neutral  Irish  State 
commended  itself  to  Europe,  on  moral  and  intel- 
lectual grounds  the  claim  could  still  be  put  higher. 
.  .  .  Germany  would  attain  her  ends  as  the 
champion  of  National  liberty  and  could  destroy 
England's  naval  supremacy  for  all  time  by  an  act 
of  irreproachable  morality.  The  United  States, 
however  distasteful  from  one  point  of  view  the 
defeat  of  England  might  be,  could  do  nothing  to 
oppose  a  European  decision  that  would  clearly 
win  an  instant  support  from  influential  circles — 
Irish  and  German — within  her  own  borders. 

"  With  the  approaching  disappearance  of  the 
Near  Eastern  question  (which  England  is  hasten- 
ing to  the  detriment  of  Turkey),"  said  the  Irish 
Review  writer  in  conclusion,  "  a  more  and  more 
pent-in  Central  Europe  may  discover  that  there 
is  a  Near  Western  question,  and  that  Ireland — a 
free  Ireland — restored  to  Europe  is  the  key  to  un- 
lock the  western  ocean  and  open  the  seaways  of 
the  world.  While  the  geographical  positions  of 
the  islands  to  each  other  and  to  Europe  have  not 
changed,  and  cannot  change,  the  political  relation 
of  the  one  to  the  other,  and  so  the  political  and 
economical  relation  of  both  to  Europe,  to  the 
world,  and  to  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world  and 
the  naval  policies  of  the  Powers,  may  be  gravely 


22     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


altered  by  agencies  beyond  the  control  of  Great 
Britain.  The  changes  wrought  in  the  speed  and 
capacity  of  steam  shipping,  the  growth  and  visible 
trend  of  German  naval  power,  and  the  increasing 
possibilities  of  aerial  navigation,  all  unite  to 
emphasise  the  historian  Niebuhr's  warning,  and 
to  indicate  for  Ireland  a  possible  future  of  restored 
communion  with  Europe,  and  less  and  less  the 
continued  wrong  of  that  artificial  exclusion  in 
which  British  policy  has  sought  to  maintain  her — 
*  an  island  beyond  an  island.'  " 

Commenting  upon  this  article,  which,  as  he 
said,  "  reckoned  with  a  military  overthrow  of 
England  in  the  interest  of  Ireland,"  General  von 
Bernhardi  observed: — "  To-day,  indeed,  German 
policy  seems  to  be  steering  full  sail  towards  an 
arrangement  with  England,  but,  as  the  goal  could 
not  be  reached  without  the  abandonment  of  our 
whole  future  as  a  world  Power,  it  is  valuable  for 
the  realpolitiker  to  examine  exhaustively  both 
the  strength  and  the  weakness  of  England."  Pro- 
ceeding with  this  examination,  in  which  he 
touched  upon  other  "  weaknesses  "  which  he  found 
in  South  Africa,  Egypt  and  elsewhere,  General 
von  Bernhardi  said  in  regard  to  Ireland  that  "  't 
is  not  without  interest  to  know  that,  if  it  ever 
comes  to  a  war  with  England,  Germany  will  have 
allies  in  the  enemy's  camp  itself,  who  in  the  given 
circumstances  are  resolved  to  bargain,  and,  in  any 
case,  will  constitute  a  grave  anxiety  for  England, 
and  perhaps  tie  fast  a  portion  of  the  English 
troops;"  and  he  concluded  with  the  remark  that 
this  was  no  time  for  Germany  to  pursue  "  a  policy 
of  renunciation."*  For  these  comments  General 
von  Bernhardi  was  severely  rebuked  in  the  offici- 
ally inspired  Berlin  correspondence  of  the  Koel- 
nische  Zeitung,  which  declared  that  he  was  far 
too  outspoken,  and,  with  some  crudity,  laid  it 
down  as  the  "  fundamental  principle  of  all  pro- 
*Berliner  Post,  September  18th,  1913. 


STRATEGIC  IMPORTANCE 


23 


fit-able  treatment  of  questions  of  foreign  policy  not 
to  say  all  that  one  thinks  without  considering 
how  it  may  be  exploited.55 

Despite  this  naive  statement,  the  German  Press 
for  the  year  before  the  war  continued  to  provide 
ample  evidence  that  Germany,  bearing  in  mind 
the  possibility  of  war  and  the  strategic  import- 
ance of  Ireland,  followed  the  development  of 
events  in  Ireland  with  the  closest  vigilance  and 
interest.  Her  Press  despatched  numerous  corres- 
pondents to  Ireland,  and  observed  with  uncon- 
cealed satisfaction  the  revival  of  the  physical 
force  doctrine  in  the  establishment  of  the 
Ulster  Volunteers.  There  is  even'  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  the  Irish  situation  was  amongst  the 
strongest  factors  on  which  she  counted  to  ensure 
the  observance  of  British  neutrality  in  the  war. 
King  George  himself  had  said  that  the  danger  of 
civil  war  was  present  to  all  responsible  and  sober- 
minded  people,  and  it  is  believed  that  Baron  von 
Kuhlmann,  Councillor  of  the  German  Embassy 
in  London,  who  was  more  trusted  by  his  Govern- 
ment than  the  Ambassador  himself,  reported  to 
Berlin  that  effective  action  could  not  be  taken  by 
a  Ministry  in  such  straits  as  that  of  Mr.  Asquith 
in  July -August,  1914. 

Foiled  in  this  expectation  that  the  revival  of  the 
physical  force  movement  in  one  of  its  aspects  in 
Ireland  would  keep  Great  Britain  neutral,  the 
German  Government,  in  pursuit  of  a  consistent 
and  integral  element  in  its  comprehensive  plan 
of  campaign,  waited  its  opportunity,  and  used  its 
best  efforts,  to  turn  the  movement  in  Ireland  in 
another  aspect  to  Germany's  account  and  Great 
Britain's  damage  in  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 
To  understand  how  its  opportunity  arose,  and  how 
its  efforts  succeeded,  it  is  necessary  to  glance  at 
the  political  history  of  Ireland  since  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Home  Rule  Bill  of  1912. 


CHAPTER  II. 


IRELAND   BEFORE    THE  WAR. 

Mr.  Arthur  Griffith,  the  theorist  of  Sinn  Fein, 
thus  described  the  third  Home  Rule  Bill : — 

"  The  definition  of  the  third  Home  Rule  Bill 
as  a  charter  of  Irish  liberty  is  subject  to  the 
following  corrections : — The  authority  of  the  pro- 
posed Parliament  does  not  extend  to  the  armed 
man  or  to  the  tax-gatherer.  It  is  checked  by  the 
tidal  waters  and  bounded  by  the  British  Treasury. 
It  cannot  counter  the  settled  purpose  of  the  Cabinet 
in  London.  It  may  make  laws,  but  it  cannot 
command  the  power  to  enforce  them.  It  may  fill 
its  purse,  but  it  cannot  have  its  purse  in  its  keep- 
ing. \  -  .  • 

"  If  this  be  Liberty,  the  lexicographers  have 
deceived  us.  .  .  .  The  measure  is  no  arrange- 
ment between  nations.  It  recognises  no  Irish 
nation.  It  might  equally  apply  to  the  latest 
British  Settlement  on  a  South  Sea  Island.  It 
satisfies  no  claim  of  the  Irish  nation  whose  roots 
are  in  Tara,  or  the  Irish  Nationalism,  which 
Molyneux  first  made  articulate.    .  . 

' '  The  Bill  does  not  alter  the  status  of  Irishmen 
by  an  inch.  They  remain  under  its  provisions  as 
impotent  to  affect  British  Imperial  policy  as  they 
are  at  present.  England  continues  to  hold  the 
Irish  purse  by  collecting  our  revenues,  paying 
them  into  her  Treasury,  or  vetoeing  their  dis- 
bursement. ...  I  do  not  fear  the  device 
as  an  Irish  Nationalist.  The  ideals  of  National- 
ism are  not  to  bought  and  sold.  If  the  Bill  be 
amended  to  give  Ireland  real  control  of  her  soil 
and  taxes,  and  power  of  initiative  in  her  legisla- 


IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR 


25 


tion,  I  shall  welcome  its  passage  as  a  measure  for 
the  improvement  of  conditions  in  Ireland,  and  a 
step  clearing  the  way  to  a  final  settlement  between 
two  nations.'VJ 

These  passages,  taken  from  an  article  in  the 
Irish  Review  of  May,  1912,  are  interesting  his- 
torically.   The  rebellion  of  1916  has  been  popu- 
larly but  not  quite  accurately  attributed  to  the  Sinn- 
Fein  movement.  We  see  that  in  1912  Mr.  Griffith, 
who  certainly  personified  Sinn  Fein,  had  no  thought 
of  the  employment  of  physical  force  or  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  Republic,  although  he  condemned 
Redmondite  Home  Rule,  on  grounds  common  also 
to  many  Unionists,  as  a  sham.  Physical  force  was 
never  in  the  Sinn  Fein  programme.    Some  of  the 
police  witnesses  at  the  Rebellion  Commission  of 
1916   suggested  that   the   movement,   at  first 
literary   and    economic   in    its    chief  aspects, 
afterwards  about  1912  had  political  connexions 
with  the  Clan-na-Gael  and  the  Irish-American 
revolutionists.     The  truth  is  that  in  1912  the 
Society  was  a  very  small  one,  having  lost  what 
influence  it  once  possessed — at  least  as  an  active 
agent  in  Irish  public  life,  though  not  as  a  moral 
force.  What  had  happened,  in  short,  was  this : — 
Between  1907  (when  the  movement  did  really 
threaten  Mr.  Redmond's  ascendency)  and  1912 
many  Sinn  Feiners  returned  to  their  belief  in  the 
policy  of  the  Parliamentary  Party,  whilst  others, 
drifting  towards  neo-Fenianism,  were  marked  down 
by  the  police  as  suspects,  when  they  had  long  since 
ceased  to  pay  their  subscriptions  to  the  Society. 
One  member  of  the   Irish  Party,  Sir  Thomas 
Esmonde,  had  proclaimed  himself  a  Sinn  Feiner 
for  a  short  space  of  time.    Alderman  Kelly,  an 
admirable  citizen,  had  led  for  years  a  small  Sinn 
Fein  group  in  the  Dublin  Corporation.  Other  con- 
sistent  supporters   of   Mr.    Griffith's  original 
programme  were  Mr.  Edward  Martyn,  a  Galway 


26     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


landlord  and  a  well-known  amateur  of  the  arts, 
and  Mr.  John  Sweetman  of  Kells,  an  old  Parnellite 
and  the  head  of  a  historic  Catholic  family. 

Theoretically,  the  movement  was  free  of  any 
hatred  for  England;  but  Mr.  Arthur  Griffith,  as 
the  following  extracts  show  (Irish  Review,  Aug., 
1911),  did  not  admit  that  the  concrete  and  current 
conceptions  of  Irish  Nationality  and  British  Im- 
perialism could  be  reconciled: — 

11  I  suggest  the  Irishman  who  is  proud  to  boast 
himself  a  citizen  of  the  British  Empire  will  dis- 
cover his  long  lost  brother  when  he  finds  the 
Scotchman  who  is  proud  to  boast  himself  a  citizen 
of  the  English  Empire.  .  .  .  The  title 
'  British  Empire '  is  a  denial  of  Ireland.  There 
is  still  a  British  Empire,  not  a  Brito-Hibernian 
Empire.  .  .  .  Irishmen  who  accept  the 
idea  of  Imperialism  as  true  and  who  preach  it  to 
their  countrymen  as  if  it  were  a  new  found  gospel, 
waste  their  energy  so  long  as  the  Imperialism  they 
preach  concretes  itself  in  the  British  Empire. 
Nationalist  Ireland  will  not  hearken,  and 
Nationalist  Ireland  will  be  right,  as  it  always  is 
when  it  follows  its  instinct.  It  knows  that  the 
acceptance  of  the  British  Empire  is  the  acceptance 
of  the  English  ascendency.  It  will  not  accept 
tha^  ascendency,  for  its  instinct  warns  it  that  to 
do  so  is  death. 

"  Until  those  in  Ireland  who  cherish  the  Im- 
perial idea  translate  it  by  Hiberno-British  instead 
of  by  British  Empire  they  will  find  no  audience 
outside  of  the  men  who  have  consistently  identified 
the  Empire  with  Irish  National  suppression. 
When  they  so  translate  it  they  will  find  National- 
ist Ireland  willing  and  ready  to  discuss  their 
views." 

The  original  objects  of  Sinn  Fein  had  in  them 
much  that  was  calculated  to  attract  the  more 


k  pHaamur  hill,  massi8 
IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR  27 

thoughtful  type  of  Irishman ;  the  idea,  for  instance, 
that  Ireland  should  cultivate  her  own  resources, 
and  look  for  salvation  from  within,  rather  than 
depend  upon  Parliamentary  intrigue  and  the 
chances  and  changes  of  English  party  life.  It 
is  worth  noting,  too,  that  Irish  Unionists 
generally  have  held  that,  if  Home  Rule  must 
come,  the  larger  the  powers  of  the  Irish  Par- 
liament the  better.  A  Legislature  restricted 
as  to  its  powers  of  taxation,  living  upon  grants 
from  the  Imperial  Government,  seemed  to 
them  likely  to  become  an  institution  for  the 
distribution  of  patronage  to  the  hacks  of  party 
politics.  Nor  was  the  Sinn  Fein  solution  incom- 
patible with  a  Federal  scheme  such  as  would 
appeal  most  equally  to  the  Imperial  senti- 
ment of  Irish  Unionists  and  the  Nationalist  senti- 
ment of  the  Home  Ruler.  On  the  other  hand,  in 
a  Federal  scheme  into  which  Gladstonian  Home 
Rule,  i.e.,  sl  Dublin  Parliament  with  strictly 
limited  powers,  would  fit,  Ireland  would  not  be  a 
nation  acting  on  equal  terms  with  Canada,  Aus- 
tralia, South  Africa ;  she  would  enter  the  scheme 
as  a  subordinate  unit  of  the  United  Kingdom,  and 
be  reduced  to  the  position  occupied  by  Quebec  in 
Canada,  or  Victoria  in  Australia.  "  If  the  sub- 
ject," wrote  Mr.  Balfour  in  his  pamphlet  on 
Nationality  and  Home  Rule,  be  approached  from 
the  side  of  Irish  Nationality,  which  is  the  line  of 
approach  suggested  by  history  .  .  .  the 
absurdities  of  Home  Rule  lie  on  the  surface  of  the 
measure.  The  limitations  imposed  .  .  .  are 
such  as  were  never  desired  by  England  in  the  case 
of  the  American  Colonies  before  the  War  of  Inde- 
pendence; nor  would  they  ever  be  tolerated  by 
any  one  of  the  self-governing  dominions.  How 
then  can  they  be  permanently  accepted  by  those 
whose  policy  is  professedly  based  on  the  inde- 
feasible claims  of  Irish  Nationality?" 


28     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


But  if  the  aims  of  Sinn  Fein  were  not,  by 
necessity,  Separatist,  many  of  its  recommenda'- 
tions  were  designed  to  damage  immediate  English 
interests.  Thus  Ireland  was  to  burn  everything  that 
came  from  England  except  coal,  and  she  should 
not  contribute  any  recruits  to  the  British  army. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  clause  of  the  Sinn  Fein 
programme  which  advised  a  withdrawal  of  Irish 
M.P.s  from  Westminster  might  have  been  inter- 
preted, according  to  one's  point  of  view,  as  either 
pro-  or  anti-English;  and  there  was  nothing 
"  seditious  "  in  the  proposal  to  cultivate  the  Irish 
language  and  literature. 

The  year  1908  had  marked  the  entrance  of  a 
new  factor  into  Irish  Nationalism.  This  was 
labour  under  Mr.  Larkin's  leadership.  The  ap- 
peal of  Sinn  Fein  had  been,  on  the  whole,  first, 
to  a  small  company  of  writers  and  scholars, 
secondly,  to  the  smaller  bourgeoisie  of  the  cities. 
Mr.  Larkin  appealed  to  the  dispossessed.  He 
held  out  hopes  of  an  immediate  amelioration  in 
the  lot  of  the  poor;  his  Nationalism,  like  the 
Parnellite  movement  towards  Home  Rule  in  the 
eighties,  had  behind  it  the  driving  force  of 
economic  misery.  But  Sinn  Fein  Nationalism 
was  doctrinaire ;  it  could  not  acquire  the  character 
of  agitation.  The  material  lure  was  in  the  distant 
future,  not  a  possibility  of  the  present;  it  con- 
cerned the  nation  rather  than  the  individual — one 
can  conceive  of  an  Ireland  which  would  be  as  a 
National  unit  economically  strong,  with  the 
present  population  trebled,  let  us  say,  yet  in  which 
the  lot  of  the  worker  might  be  no  better  than  it 
is  at  present.  Nor  were  Mr.  Griffith's  protective 
doctrines  compatible  with  the  Radical  dogmas  of 
the  labour  men.  Again,  whereas  Sinn  Fein 
traced  the  Dublin  slums  to  some  thievery  on  the 
part  of  the  British  Government,  Mr.  Larkin 
charged  Irish  employers  and  ward  politicians  with 


IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR  29 


chief  responsibility  for  the  city's  disgrace.  To  Mr. 
Larkin's  "intellectual"  sympathisers  there  was  m 
the  Sinn  Fein  and  kindred  Gaelic  societies  a  trace 
of  smugness  and  self-satisfaction,  or  of  hysteria; 
the  type  reminded  them  of  the  Imperialist  across 
the  Channel  with  his  watchwords,  duty  and  self- 
discipline,  or  of  the  Daily  Mail  reader  who  ever 
expected  German  Uhlans  to  turn  up  some  morning 
with  the  milk.  ' '  The  Irish-Irelander  is  convinced 
that  there  is  some  particular  virtue  in  the  mere 
fact  of  belonging  to  a  race,  apart  altogether  from 
its  development.  Sociology  secures  scant  atten- 
tion from  people  whose  minds  are  concentrated 
upon  grammar,  bag-pipes  and  kilts.  The  wear- 
ing of  Irish  clothes  and  the  use  of  the  Irish 
language  seem  to  be  vastly  more  important  than 
the  individuals  for  whom  these  benefits  are  in- 
tended. Whatever  social  evils  affect  the  Irish 
people  are  understood  to  be  simply  by-products 
of  an  alien  regime.  The  social  and  industrial 
problems  which  engage  the  minds  of  modern 
thinkers  weigh  little  with  Gaelic  idealists."* 

The  Dublin  slums  should  have  been  a  fertile 
ground  for  breeding  the  propaganda  of  revolu- 
tionary industrialism.  But  it  is  doubtful  if  Mr. 
Larkin  drew  his  real  strength,  during  the  great, 
strike  of  1913,  from  the  very  poor.  Certainly, 
three  years  later  the  slums  were  frankly  hostile 
to  the  plans  of  those  insurrectionary  bodies  among 
which  was  included  the  Citizen  Army,  inheriting 
from  the  events  of  1913.  The  women  of  the  slums, 
many  of  them  the  wives  of  soldiers,  were  enraged 
by  the  Republican  proclamation  and  attacked  the 
rebel  leaders  before  the  Post  Office  with  bottles 
and  a  most  violent  language.  The  men  who,  after 
the  failure  of  the  strike,  remained  faithful  to 
Larkin  and  his  organisation  at  Liberty  Hall,  were 

*"  The  Jingoism  of  the  Gael."  By  E.  A.  Boyd,  Irish 
Review,  April  11,  1913. 


30     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


not  the  worst  paid  workers  of  the  city;  nor  was 
the  Citizen  Army  an  ill-fed  and  dejected  body. 
The  genuine  Larkinite  was  a  man  with  a  streak 
of  adventure  in  him,  emotionally  a  strong  Nation- 
alist, of  lively  mind,  a  newspaper  reader,  eager 
for  education. 

Mr.  Larkin,  an  Irishman  who  had  lived  much 
in  England  and  acquired  some  habits  of  English 
speech,  as  first  professed  an  Internationalism. 
Personality  rather  than  brain  was  his  chief  asset. 
But  he  had  picked  up  some  theories  of  the  Class 
War  and  of  Guild  Socialism;  he  was  interested 
in  ideas;  his  mind  was  alive,  if  a  little  confused. 
It  does  not  seem  that  he  was  ever  an  anti-patriot, 
nor  did  he,  like  the  true  Syndicalist,  regard 
violence  as  an  end  in  itself.  He  had  a  mission 
he  said,  to  stir  up  divine  discontent ;  but  that  was 
a  rhetorical  flourish  which  any  reformer  might 
have  employed.  Theoretically  Mr.  Larkin  was 
a  pacificist,  a  believer  in  the  brotherhood  of  man, 
the  progress  of  civilisation — a  Messianist,  in 
short.  His  quarrel  with  the  English  trade  unions, 
and  the  peculiar  devotion  he  enjoyed  in  Ireland 
were,  however,  powerful  influences  inducing 
him  to  invest  the  labour  movement  in  Dublin  with 
a  definitely  Nationalist  character.  "  Internation- 
alism," he  explained  in  an  early  issue  of  the  Irish 
Worker,  "  means  Internationalism  and  not  one 
Nationalism.  We,  of  the  Irish  workers,  are  out 
to  claim  the  earth  for  the  world's  workers,  and 
our  portion  as  Irishmen  is  Ireland.  So  hands  off, 
all  predatory  persons,  no  matter  under  what  name 
or  disguise.  We  are  determined  to  weld  together 
the  common  people  of  the  North,  the  South,  the 
East  and  the  West." 

One  of  his  principal  supporters,  James  Con- 
nolly, the  revolutionary  leader  of  1916,  developed 
with  considerable  skill  in  a  book  entitled  Labour 
in  Irish  History  the  thesis  that  the  only  true  re- 


IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR 


31 


positories  of  the  Irish  Nationalist  tradition  were 
the  working  men  of  Ireland.  To  him  all  such 
"professional'5  patriots  as  Swift,  Grattan,  Flood, 
Redmond  were  bourgeois  representatives  who 
had  failed  to  recognise  that  the  real  issue  lav 
between  Irish  proletarians,  inheritors  of  the  Clan 
system,  and  the  landlords  and  capitalists  of  what- 
ever race  and  religion.  But  the  really  National 
leaders  of  the  Past  were  Wolfe  Tone,  William 
Thompson,  an  early  Socialist  pioneer,  Fintan 
Lalor,  John  Mitchel,  Michael  Davitt;  of  the 
Present,  labour  leaders  such  as  Larkin  with  whom 
were  allied  (though  they  might  know  it  not)  the 
prophets  of  the  co-operative  movement  and  the 
Gaelic  Revival.  "  As  the  Gaelic  language,  scorned 
by  the  possessing  classes,  sought  and  found  its 
last  fortress  in  the  hearts  and  homes  of  the  '  lower 
orders/  to  issue  from  them  in  our  own  time  to 
.  .  a  greater  and  more  enduring  place  in 
civilisation  than  of  old,  so  in  the  words  of  Thomas 
Francis  Meagher,  the  same  '  wretched  cabins  have 
been  the  holy  shrine  in  which  the  traditions  and  the 
hopes  of  Ireland  have  been  treasured  and  trans- 
mitted.' "  Larkin's  chief  associates,  besides 
Connolly,  were  four  members  of  the  Trades' 
Council,  Messrs.  Daly,  Partridge,  O'Brien  and 
Thomas  Lawlor.  He  had  no  aid  from  any  mem- 
bers of  the  Redmondite  party,  whose  official 
attitude  towards  the  great  strike  was  one  of  strict 
neutrality.  The  employers'  leader  (as  it  hap- 
pened) was  Mr.  W.  M.  Murphy,  formerly  a 
Nationalist  Member  of  Parliament,  but  now 
through  his  newspaper,  the  Irish  Independent, 
one  of  the  bitterest  critics  of  Mr.  Redmond's 
policy.  But  old  party  politics  entered  but  little 
into  the  dispute,  and  ordinary  lines  of  division  were 
observed.  The  Hibernians,  a  sectarian  "  friendly 
society  55  organised  by  Mr.  Devlin  in  the  interests 
of  the  "  Party,"  constituted  a  violent  opposition 


32     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


to  the  strike,  and  the  most  distinguished  apologist 
of  Larkinism  was  Mr.  George  Russell,  the  Irish 
poet,  whose  letters  to  the  Times  on  conditions  in 
Dublin  created  a  deep  impression  on  English 
opinion.  Captain.  White,  D.S.O.,  an  Ulster  Irish- 
man, and  the  son  of  the  defender  of  Ladysmith, 
carried  out  the  drilling  of  the  Citizen  Army. 
What  the  newspapers  call  a  wave  of  unrest  was 
certainly  passing  over  the  land,  and  the  only 
champions  of  law  and  order  left  seemed  to  be  Mr. 
Redmond's  party,  inheritors  of  the  Land  League! 
Mr.  Larkin,  accused  of  inciting  to  violence,  said; 
"If  it  is  right  and  legal  for  the  men  of  Ulster  to 
arm,  why  should  it  not  be  right  and  legal  for  the 
men  of  Dublin  to  arm  and  protect  themselves  V 
The  allusion  was  to  the  Covenanters  who  had  been 
committing  illegalities  for  twelve  months  past, 
without,  however,  doing  any  damage  to  life  or  to 
property  in  the  province  of  Ulster,  which  was  now, 
as  it  remained  during  every  subsequent  crisis,  the 
most  peaceful  part  of  Ireland. 

We  return  to  September  1912,  the  date  of  the 
celebrated  Ulster  Covenant.  This  document,  which 
was  signed  by  218,000  men,  had  been  drawn  up  by 
a  Committee  of  five,  which  included  Lord  London- 
derry, Sir  Edward  Carson  and  Captain  Craig.  It 
pledged  the  signatories  to  use  "  all  means  that 
may  be  found  necessary  to  resist  the  present  con- 
spiracy "  of  Home  Rule.  The  words  "  present 
conspiracy  "  were  significant.  Thus,  for  instance, 
had  Mr.  Bonar  Law,  aided  by  Sir  Edward 
Carson,  secured  office,  and  then  carried  some  other 
scheme  for  handing  over  the  local  government  of 
Ireland  to  Irishmen,  "the  Covenant  would  not 
bind  any  longer,  for  the  present  1  conspiracy  ' 
would  be  gone."* 

The  religious  character  with  which  the  proceed- 

*  "  Eeign  of  Sir  Edward  Carson."  By  the  Hon.  George 
Peel,  pp.  69,  70. 


IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR 


33 


ings  of  1  '  Ulster  Day  5  5  were  invested  struck  many 
observers  as  impressive,  and  a  Times  corres- 
pondent afterwards  applied  to  them  the  phrase  an 
"  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  with  Divinity." 
The  Liberals  and  the  Nationalists  did  not  yet  take 
the  movement  very  seriously,  but  one  member  of 
the  Government  accused  Sir  Edward  of  preaching 
anarchy.    Sir  Edward  replied: — 

"  He  says  that  my  doctrines  and  the  course  \ 
am  taking  leads  to  anarchy.  Does  he  not  think 
I  know  that?  Does  he  think  that,  after  coming 
to  my  time  of  life  and  passing  through  the  various 
offices  and  responsibilities  I  have  accepted,  I  did 
this  like  a  baby  without  knowing  the  consequences. 
.  .  .  All  this  chopping  of  logic  is  so  much 
nonsense.  We  are  prepared,  if  we  fail,  to  take 
the  consequences.  The  whole  of  the  matter  is  to 
me  one  of  the  gravest  responsibilities  I  have  ever 
had  in  my  life.  I  am  no  thoughtless  lad,  trying 
to  inflame  bigoted  passions.  I  loathe  them.  I 
know  what  I  am  dealing  with." 

In  February,  1913,  a  special  Ulster  Council  of 
Four  Hundred  met  in  Belfast  to  ratify  and  confirm 
the  "  further  steps  5'  taken  by  the  Special  Com- 
mission (of  Five),  and  approve  of  the  draft  re- 
solutions of  the  Ulster  Provisional  Government, 
and  to  appoint  the  members  of  the  Special  Com- 
mission to  act  as  the  Executive  thereunder. 

During  the  year  efforts  were  made  to  arm  the 
Volunteers  with  superior  rifles  and  machine  guns. 
The  Times  estimate  (December  9,  1913)  was  that 
between  30,000  and  40,000  rifles  and  20,000  pistols 
had  been  sent  to  Ireland.  The  strength  of  the 
force  in  men  was  usually  said  tobebetween  100,000 
and  150,000.  Military  arrangements  were  very 
elaborate.  A  General  Staff,  or  Advisory  Board, 
had  been  appointed  for  the  Volunteer  Force 
with  headquarters  at  the  Old  Town  Hall,  Belfast. 

c 


34     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


This  staff  was  in  close  and  constant  communi- 
cation with  the  various  units  of  the  Volunteer 
Force  in  the  Province,  and  all  communications 
could,  if  necessary,  be  conveyed  through  the  Ulster 
Despatch  Riding  and  Signalling  Corps,  so  that  the 
agency  of  the  Post  Office  could  be  dispensed  with 
for  the  dissemination  of  important  and  private 
messages  between  the  General  Staff  and  the 
various  units  of  the  Force  (Times,  Aug.  27th, 
1913.)  Mr.  Walter  Long  averred  that  this  army 
would  soon  be  in  its  personnel,  in  its  training,  and 
its  equipment  equal  to  the  best  army  that  England 
could  put  into  the  field.  No  less  an  authority 
than  Colonel  Repington,  the  Times  military  cor- 
respondent, presently  agreed  with  Mr.  Long. 

The  Nationalist  reply  to  the  operations  in  Ulster 
appeared  on  November  25th,  1913.  It  was  a 
Manifesto  calling  upon  Irishmen  to  "  maintain 
the  rights  and  liberties  common  to  all  the  people 
of  Ireland."  "  A  plan  had  been  deliberately 
adopted  by  one  of  the  great  English  political 
parties,  advocated  by  the  leaders  of  that  party  and 
by  its  numerous  organs  in  the  Press,  and  brought 
systematically  to  bear  on  English  public  opinion, 
to  make  the  display  of  military  force  and  the 
menace  of  armed  violence  the  determining  factor 
in  the  future  relations  between  this  country  and 
Great  Britain."  Therefore,  if  Irishmen  "  fail 
to  take  such  measures  as  will  effectually  reject 
this  policy,  we  become  politically  the  worst  de- 
graded population  in  Europe,  and  no  longer 
worthy  of  the  name  of  nation."  Such  was  the 
occasion,  "not  altogether  unfortunate"  which  had 
brought  about  the  inception  of  the  Irish  Volunteer 
movement.  "  But  the  Volunteers,  once  they  have 
been  enrolled,  will  form  a  permanent  element  in 
the  National  life  under  a  National  Government." 

The  promoters  of  the  inaugural  meeting  of 
Volunteers  in  Dublin  were  Mr.  John  MacNeill, 


IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR  35 


Professor  of  Old  Irish  History  at  the  National 
University,  and  Mr.  Laurence  Kettle,  a  Dublin 
solicitor  and  the  brother  of  the  late  Lieut.  T.  M. 
Kettle,  a  former  member  of  the  Irish  Party  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Neither  Mr.  MacNeill  nor  Mr. 
Kettle  had  hitherto  taken  part  in  politics.  But 
both  men  were  known  as  strong  Nationalists  of 
the  Constitutional  sort.  Nor  did  Colonel  Moore, 
who  at  once  put  his  military  experience  at  the 
disposal  of  the  organisation,  bear  the  character 
of  a  revolutionist.  A  brother  of  Mr.  George 
Moore,  the  novelist,  he  had  served  with  distinction 
in  the  South  African  War.  But  some  of  those 
who  had  associated  themselves  with  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Volunteers,  and  notably  Sir  Roger 
Casement,  were  suspect  in  the  eyes  of  the  ortho- 
dox Nationalist.  Colonel  Moore  has  described  the 
composition  of  the  original  committee : — 

"  On  my  first  entrance  I  found  about  twenty- 
five  members  present;  nearly  all  of  them  were 
young  men,  some  merely  boys  of  twenty;  some 
seemingly  less.  None  of  them  knew  anything  of 
military  affairs,  but  they  had  hired  halls  for  drill- 
ing and  obtained  the  free  services  of  excellent  men 
to  instruct  them.  Except  Mr.  John  MacNeill, 
and  Mr.  Pearse  and  Mr.  MacDonagh,  I  had  never 
seen  or  heard  of  any  of  them  before,  and  it  took 
me  two  or  three  days  to  size  them  up  and  separate 
the  groups.  There  were  about  two  extremists, 
and  four  or  five  boys  under  their  domination;  these 
latter  men  were  mild  and  quiet  and  by  no  means 
unreasonable.  Five  or  six  Sinn  Feiners  were  in  a 
separate  group;  they  might  be  described  as  ex- 
treme Home  Rulers ;  they  did  not  approve  of  the 
methods  of  the  Parliamentary  Party,  but  were 
not  revolutionists.  .  .  .  There  were  a  few 
like  MacNeill,  Pearse,  MacDonagh,  Plunkett, 
and  O'Rahilly,  who  belonged  to  no  special  politi- 


38     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


cal  party;  they  were  idealists.  The  remainder 
of  the  Committee  were  moderate  men,  inclined  to 
follow  the  Parliamentary  Party.  ...  It  will 
be  interesting  to  note  how  some  of  the  Sinn  Fein 
party  and  some  of  the  Idealists  gradually  became 
Extremists,  and  merged  with  the  Fenians."* 

The  hostility  of  Mr.  Redmond  and  the  Parlia- 
mentary leaders  to  the  new  movement  has  been 
variously  interpreted.  It  was  probably  in  part 
due  to  jealousy.  The  Irish  Party  had  always 
disliked  independent  action  in  Irish  politics,  and 
it  had  not  been  consulted  in  regard  to  the  new  de- 
parture, which  now  turned  out  to  be  very  popular. 
Further,  the  Party  feared  that  the  organisation 
might  develop  along  extreme  lines.  Certain 
passages  in  the  Manifesto,  as,  for  instance,  that 
the  occasion  (i.e.,  the  arming  of  the  Ulster  Volun- 
teers) was  ' '  not  altogether  unfortunate  ' '  together 
with  the  announcement  that  the  Volunteers,  once 
they  had  been  enrolled,  would  form  "a  permanent 
element  in  the  National  life  under  a  National 
Government,"  were  disquieting.  Mr.  Redmond 
had  accepted  the  Home  Rule  Bill  as  a  final  settle- 
ment, and  the  Bill  expressly  removed  the  right  of 
maintaining  armed  forces  from  the  powers  of  an 
Irish  Parliament. 

It  is  important  to  remember  that  the  Irish 
Party  at  the  time  based  its  hopes  entirely  on  the 
alliance  with  English  Liberalism,  and  wished  to 
act  according  to  the  most  strict  constitutional 
forms.  Here,  indeed,  the  strength  of  its  position 
in  respect  of  "Ulster"  and  the  Conservative 
party,  which  were  definitely  committed  to  warlike 
preparation,  seemed  to  lie.  Mr.  Devlin  urged  th3 
Government  to  pursue  its  way  unperturbed  by 
menaces  from  Belfast.  The  worst  that  could 
happen,  he  calculated,  was  rioting  in  Ulster  on 
*  Freeman's  Journal,  May  30,  1916. 


IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR  37 


the  day  that  Home  Rule  passed  into  law.  An 
attack  by  Covenanters  might  be  made  on  the 
peaceable  and  unarmed  Catholics  of  the  province. 
That  would  disgust  Englishmen  and  break  up  the 
alliance  between  the  English  Conservatives  and 
the  Carsonites.  And,  indeed,  Sir  Edward 
Carson,  for  all  his  plans  of  a  Provisional  Govern- 
ment and  passive  resistance,  would  have  found 
himself  awkwardly  placed  if  the  Home  Rule  Bill 
had  quietly  reached  the  Statute  Book,  no  matter 
how  great  had  been  the  determination  of  the  Coven- 
anters behind  him.  It  seems,  therefore,  that  the 
Irish  Party  displayed,  from  its  own  point  of  view, 
good  judgment  in  depreciating  the  Nationalist 
Volunteers,  whose  appearance  revolutionised  the 
situation.  But  provocation  had  been  offered  even 
to  the  most  pacificist  of  Home  Rulers  by  speeches 
like  that  of  Mr.  F.  E.  Smith,  then  the  English 
Attorney-General,  comparing  Nationalists  with 
Covenanters,  and  asking  with  a  sneer  were  the 
former  willing  to  fight  for  Home  Rule. 

The  Government  now  issued  a  proclamation 
prohibiting  the  importation  of  arms  into  Ireland. 
The  Covenanters  professed  their  indifference  to 
the  prohibition,  boasting  that  they  were  already 
well  equipped  and  would  have  no  difficulty  of 
procuring  further  arms  if  necessary.  The 
Nationalists  were  in  a  different  case;  and  it  cer- 
tainly gave  them  cause  for  suspicion  that  the 
Government  should  have  allowed  the  Covenanters 
a  year  in  which  to  equip  themselves,  whilst  at  once 
putting  an  obstacle  in  the  way  of  Southern  Volun- 
teer armament.  Drilling,  however,  became  very 
popular  in  the  South  of  Ireland,  and  the  Igteh 
Party  in  Parliament  reached  the  conclusion  that 
they  would  have  to  accept  the  Volunteer  movement 
as  an  accomplished  fact.  Consequently,  the  next 
event  was  a  demand  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Redmond 
that  "  tried  and  true,"  or  recognised  National- 


38     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


ists — i.e.,  well-known  supporters  of  the  Party — 
should  acquire  a  majority  on  the  Committee.  He 
proposed  himself  to  nominate  twenty-five  sub- 
stantial men;  if  the  nominations  were  rejected,  he 
would  regard  the  Volunteers  as  a  body  of  faction- 
ists  hostile  to  the  Party.  Unionist  newspapers 
in  Dublin  watched  the  situation  with  mingled 
feelings,  but  seemed  on  the  whole  sympathetic 
towards  the  threatened  Committee.  They  drew 
attention  to  the  generous  All-for-Ireland  spirit  in 
which  the  original  Manifesto  had  been  composed 
and  argued  that,  if  the  organisation  came  under 
the  control  of  the  Irish  Parliamentary  leaders,  it 
would  at  once  acquire  a  sectarian  and  party  char- 
acter. Finally,  however,  Mr.  John  MacNeill 
and  his  friends  accepted  Mr.  Redmond's  ultima- 
tum with  what  grace  they  could. 

Without  Nationalist  Volunteers  there  had  been 
no  Act  prohibiting  the  importation  of  arms  into 
Ireland ;  without  that  Act  there  had  been  no  op- 
portunity for  the  Covenanters  in  Ulster  to  show 
how  great  and  menacing  was  their  strength.  The 
gun-running  at  Larne  and  other  parts  of  the  North 
must  be  described  as  an  event  of  first-rate  import- 
ance. How  many  arms  the  Covenanters  secured 
by  their  defiance  of  the  Act  mattered  little.  The 
success  of  the  coup  consisted  in  the  fact  that  it  was 
effected  in  perfect  security  without  any  serious 
collision  with  the  authorities ;  one  Customs  official, 
it  is  true,  died  of  heart  failure;  there  was  no  other 
casualty.  Mr.  Asquith  characteristically  described 
the  gun-running  as  a  grave  and  unprecedented 
outrage.  Some  troops  were  moved  up  to  the 
North  of  Ireland;  and  Mr.  Churchill  despatched 
two  gun-boats  to  Belfast  Lough.  Nothing  further 
happened;  and  the  ringleaders  of  the  enterprise 
were  left  unpunished.  The  causes  of  this  were 
two:  first,  the  evident  disinclination  of  the  Army 
to  be  used  against  Ulster;  secondly,  the  fact  that 


IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR  39 


Mr.  Redmond  and  Mr.  Dillon,  being  now  them- 
selves mixed  up  in  illegal  associations  in  the  South 
of  Ireland,  opposed  reprisals.  If  the  Nationalist 
leaders  had  insisted  upon  punishment  for  the 
Ulstermen  they  would  have  left  themselves  open 
to  the  charge — and  it  would  certainly  have  been 
brought  by  the  critics  of  their  own  side — of  con- 
spiring against  the  existence  of  the  Nationalist 
Volunteers. 

From  this  most  complicated  state  of  things  one 
fact  emerged,  namely,  that  Sir  Edward  Carson 
was  master  of  the  situation.    Mr.  Redmond  and 
Mr.  Dillon  had  been  out-manoeuvred.    The  Irish 
Volunteers,  indeed,  expressed  the  greatest  ad- 
miration for  the  daring  and  cleverness  of  the  law- 
breakers of  Ulster.   They  had  always  said  that 
they  did  not  wish  any  section  of  Irishmen  to  be 
coerced  by  English  soldiers.  At  the  same  time  the 
action  of  the  Military,  Lord  Roberts'  comings  and 
goings  at  the  War  Office,  the  so-called  "  Curragh 
Revolt,"  the  frank  delight  of  the  English  upper 
classes  in  the  Ulster  coup,  while  favouring  the 
theory  that  Ireland  could  expect  no  fair  play  from 
those  who  really  ruled  in  England — the  dice  being 
loaded  against  her  in  every  instance — destroyed 
the  hopes  that  Ulster  Unionism  would  develop 
along   anti-English  lines.     Casement,    in  his 
statement  at  the  trial  for  high  treason  two 
years  later,  referred  to  this  period,  holding  that 
proof  had  then  been  given  that  English  military 
power  was  in  the  last  resort  the  enemy  of  Irish 
Nationality.    But  he  denied  that  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers had  any  party  aims.    "  Neither  I  nor  any 
of  the  leaders  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  who  were 
founded  in  Dublin  in  November   1913,  had  any 
quarrel  with  the  Ulster  Volunteers,  as  such,  who 
were  born  a  year  earlier.    Our  movement  was  not 
directed  against  them,  but  against  the  men  who 
misused  and  misdirected  the  courage,  the  sincerity 


40     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


and  local  patriotism  of  the  men  of  the  North  of 
Ireland." 

The  Sinn  Feiners  may  have  dreamed  with  Case- 
ment that  Nationalist  Ireland  might  of  a  sudden, 
by  some  magnanimous  gesture,  detach  Ulster  from 
her  English  allies;  but  to  everyone  else,  the  Irish 
Party  included,  the  exclusion  of  Ulster,  or  a  part 
of  Ulster,  from  the  Home  Rule  Bill  was  now  a 
practical  certainty.  In  the  gun-running  episode 
Sir  Edward  Carson  had  brought  the  position  to 
the  test,  and  it  stood  firm.  Neither  Sir  Edward 
Carson  nor  any  of  the  responsible  leaders  of  the 
Ulster  movement — wily  old  birds  "  as  they 
termed  themselves — ever  seriously  contemplated 
resistance  to  the  forces  of  the  Crown.  Sometimes 
their  talk  verged  on  conditional  sedition.  "If 
we  are  deserted  by  Great  Britain, 3  9  cried  the 
Secretary  of  the  Ulster  Council,  "  I  would  rather 
be  governed  by  Germany  than  by  Patrick  Ford 
and  Company. "  Captain  Craig,  M.P.,  testified 
to  the  spreading  abroad  of  a  spirit  that  would 
prefer  Germany  and  the  German  Emperor  to  the 
Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians;  but  the  most  re- 
markable utterance  on  these  lines  was  that  of  Mr. 
Chambers,  the  member  for  South  Belfast  (Mav 
24th  1913):  ''If  Home  Rule  came,"  said  Mr. 
Chambers,  "  would  not  Ireland  then  clamour  for 
independence  complete  and  thorough  from  Great 
Britain?  What  side  would  Ulster  take  then? 
He  bound  no  man  by  his  opinions.  They  owed  to 
England  loyalty  and  gratitude;  but  if  England 
cast  them  off  then  he  reserved  the  right  as  a  be- 
trayed man  to  say,  'I  shall  no  longer  sing  uGod 
Save  the  King !  "  England,  I  will  laugh  at  your 
calamity,  I  will  mock  when  your  hour  cometh.'  " 
There  were  undoubtedly  some  fanatics  of  Orange- 
ism — among  whom  no  one  would  include  the 
politician  just  quoted — who  would  have  turned 
"  rebel "  and  come  to  hate  England  if  the  Home 


IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR  M 

Rule  Bill  had  been  brought  into  operation  ov 
Ulster.    That  was   :ue   ::  the  reasons  why  Sir 
Edward  Carson,  a  devoted  B:  ton  if  ever  there  was 
one.  put  his    ran  a:  the  service  of  the  province. 

What  >:r  Edward  and  the  responsible  leaders 
had  counted  upon  from  the  first  was  the  natural 
reluctance  of  British  officers  and  men  to  fire  upon 

r : . -  ~a;se  "  only  crime."  as  the  saviun  —  ent. 
was  tr_at  they  were  loyalists;  i.e.,  desired  to  keep 
as  :l:selv  s  possible  to  the  British  connexion. 
When  the  populace  receive;;  with  effusive  j:y  the 
troops  drafted  into  Ulster — when  the  :re~  if  the 
gunboats  in  Belfast  Lough  had  invitations  to  tea 
from  the  very  culprits  whom  they  had  come  to 
overawe — then  all  was  over  but  the  shouting.  The 
Nationalists  had  been  worsted  at  the  game. 
England  had  no  longer  any  thought  of  putting 
pressure  on  the  Ulstermen.  There  were  a  few 
Liberals  who  wished  t;  raise  the  issue.  Army 
rersus  People.  But  what  ":  People V  The 
Unionists,  the  larger  party  in  England,  were  on 
the  side  of  the  Army  and  rejoiced  over  the  blood- 
Irss  crisis,  the  success  ::  Sir  Edward  Carson*? 
tactics,  for  they  held  that  the  partition  of  Ireland 
would  be  a  statutory  denial  of  the  National  claim. 
Tire  majority  of  the  Liberal  Party  and  the  Cabinet 
did  not,  to  put  it  mildly,  care  enough  for  Irish 
Nationality  to  provoke  on  its  behalf  the  sentiment 
of  civ  1  war  in  their  own  country. 

In  June.  1914.  the  Irish  Volunteers  issue  ". 
Manifesto  urging  the  immediate  withdrawal  :: 
the  Proclamation  prohibiting  the  import  of  arms 
into  Ireland-  The  action  of  the  Government  had 
placed  in  the  way  of  Irishmen  favourable  to 
National  autonomy  obstacles  which  "admittedly 
are  inoperative  in  the  case  of  those  apposed  to 
Irish  seli-Government"  "The  right  oi  a  free 
re;rle  to  carry  arms  in  defence  of  their  ireedom  " 
was  ;' an  elementary  part  of  political  liberty." 


42     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


"The  denial  of  that  right"  was  "a  denial  of 
political  liberty  and  consistent  only  with  a  de- 
spotic form  of  government."  The  concluding 
passage  of  the  Manifesto,  which  was  signed  by 
Mr.  John  MacNeill  and  Mr.  L.  J.  Kettle,  showed 
that  more  genial  relations  had  been  established 
with  Mr.  Redmond: — 

1 '  We  are  glad  to  recognise  (it  ran)  that  the 
time  has  come  when  the  members  of  the  Irish  Par- 
liamentary Party,  with  Mr.  John  Redmond  at  its 
head,  have  been  able,  owing  to  the  development  of 
the  Irish  Volunteer  Organisation  on  sound  and 
well-defined  National  lines,  to  associate  them- 
selves by  public  declaration  with  a  work  which  the 
nation  has  spontaneously  taken  in  hands.  Their 
accession  is  all  the  more  welcome  since,  from  the 
outset  of  the  Volunteer  movement,  we  have  made 
it  our  constant  aim  to  bring  about  a  whole  and 
sincere  unity  of  the  Irish  people  on  the  grounds 
of  National  freedom.  In  that  spirit,  too,  we  look 
forward  to  the  day  when  the  minority  of  our 
fellow-countrymen,  still  apparently  separated 
from  us  in  affection,  will  be  joined  hand-in-hand 
with  the  majority,  in  a  union  within  which  the 
rights  and  liberties  common  to  all  the  people  of 
Ireland  will  be  sacred  to  all  and  will  be  a  trust  to 
be  defended  by  the  sword  and  lives  of  all  Irish- 
men." 

At  Westminster,  however,  party  feeling  grew 
very  bitter,  and  the  Government's  suggested  com- 
promise was  rejected  scornfully  by  Sir  Edward 
Carson.  The  terms  offered  were  a  referendum  of 
the  Ulster  counties.  The  counties  which  voted  by 
a  majority  against  Home  Rule  were  to  be  allowed 
to  be  excluded  from  the  scope  of  the  Act  for  six 
years.  It  would  have  meant  the  temporary  loss 
to  the  Home  Rule  Government  of  the  four  counties 


IRELAND  BEFORE  THE  WAR  43 


of  Antrim,  Down,  Londonderry  and  Armagh. 
In  July  the  King  intervened  and  called  together  a 
conference  of  parties  at  Buckingham  Palace. 
The  wording  of  the  invitation  was  very  frank; 
evidently  those  in  high  places  had  begun  to  view 
the  Irish  situation  with  the  utmost  alarm.  What 
happened  at  the  conference  has  never  been  dis- 
closed. We  only  know  that  it  ended  in  faction. 
It  has  been  assumed,  however,  that  the  King  in 
his  address  to  the  delegates  drew  their  attention 
to  the  threatening  war  clouds  in  Europe.  The 
decision  rested  with  the  three  Nationalist  leaders, 
Mr.  Redmond,  Mr.  John  Dillon  and  Mr.  Devlin. 
,  They  were  now  ready  to  make  greater  concessions 
than  those  embodied  in  the  proposals  recently  re- 
jected by  Sir  Edward  Carson.  The  "  time  limit" 
provision  was  to  be  omitted.  Probably  the  con- 
ference broke  down  over  the  question  of  the 
Counties  Fermanagh  and  Tyrone  which,  although 
inhabited  by  a  Nationalist  majority,  were  regarded 
by  Ulster  Protestants  as  an  inalienable  heritage. 

In  the  meantime  the  Nationalists  of  Ireland 
were  preparing  a  coup  by  which  they  should  show 
that  in  resource  and  daring  they  equalled  the 
Ulster  gun-runners.  Early  in  the  forenoon  of 
July  26th  a  large  yacht  sailed  into  Howth 
Harbour.  On  her  arrival  a  force  of  about  850 
Volunteers  took  possession  of  the  pier  and  began 
to  unload  the  rifles  that  formed  the  yacht's  cargo. 
With  these  they  marched  off  to  Dublin.  News  of 
the  operation  was  telephoned  to  Dublin,  and  a 
force  of  Metropolitan  Police  with  200  soldiers 
were  sent  to  intercept  the  Volunteers.  They  met 
them  at  Marino  Crescent.  The  Volunteers  refused 
to  surrender  the  guns,  and  a  slight  conflict 
occurred,  in  which  a  lance-corporal  of  the  Scottish 
Borderers  was  wounded,  and  some  Volunteers  had 
their  heads  injured  by  blows  of  clubbed  rifles. 
Seeing  the  direct  road  barred,  the  Volunteers  took 


44     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


to  the  fields  and  made  their  way  into  town  by  cir- 
cuitous routes.  It  was  when  the  soldiers  were  on 
their  return  march  at  6.30  that  the  shooting  affray 
at  Bachelor's  Walk  took  place.  Some  of  the 
soldiers  fired  on  a  hostile  crowd,  killing  three  men 
and  injuring  many  others. 


CHAPTER  III. 


IRELAND   DUEING    THE  WAR 

Those  exciting  events  of  Sunday  the  26th  of  July, 
1914,  will  be  associated  in  Irish  history  with  the 
name  of  Bachelor's  Walk.  One  waited  for  the 
sequel;  but  none  came,  if  we  except  Mr.  Birrell's 
repudiation  of  his  subordinates  at  Dublin  Castle, 
and  the  confining  to  barracks  of  the  King's  Own 
Scottish  Borderers,  the  regiment  which  had  op- 
posed the  march  of  the  Nationalist  Volunteers. 
The  Irish  crisis,  of  which  all  the  newspapers  had 
been  writing  for  a  year  and  a  half,  seemed  suddenly 
to  have  come  to  an  end,  and  the  English  Times 
itself,  which  for  months  past  had  been  publishing 
daily  "  grave  warnings  "  on  the  "  imminence  "  of 
" dreadful"  civil  war,  suddenly  became  silent  as 
regards  Irish  affairs.  It  was,  of  course,  natural 
that  the  coming  war  in  Europe  should  put  Ireland 
in  a  back  place  as  a  newspaper  topic;  and  yet, 
would  not  civil  war  have  been  doubly  "  dreadful  " 
had  it  taken  place  in  the  midst  of  European  war? 
Perhaps  civil  war  had  ceased  to  be  "  imminent?" 
But  why?  England's  difficulty  is  said  to  be  Ire- 
land's opportunity,  and  anti-English  feeling  had 
seriously  strengthened  by  the  affair  at  Bachelor's 
Walk. 

In  Dublin  the  victims  of  the  unhappy  riot  were 
given  a  popular  funeral,  and  the  Scottish 
Borderers  had  to  keep  to  their  barracks.  The 
Ulster  gun-runners  had  gone  unpunished ;  and  in 
the  House  of  Commons  Mr.  Redmond  and  his 
colleagues  bitterly  contrasted  the  licence  allowed 
to  Unionists  in  the  North,  particularly  on  the 
occasion  of  the  "  grave  and  unprecedented  out- 


46     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


rage"  at  Lame,  although,  as  we  have  seen,  it 
afterwards  transpired  that  the  Irish  members  had 
been  themselves  opposed  to  the  punishment  of  the 
Ulstermen. 

The  outbreak  of  the  European  war  relieved  the 
Government  of  its  pressing  Irish  difficulties.  Sir 
Edward  Grey  described  Ireland  as  ' '  the  one  bright 
spot,"  in  a  famous  speech,  and  Mr.  Redmond 
seized  the  emotional  moment  to  make  a  speech  in 
which  he  assured  Englishmen  of  the  unconditional 
loyalty  of  his  countrymen  during  the  European 
crisis.  Sir  Edward  Carson  was  equally  devoted; 
but  Mr.  Redmond  made  the  greater  impression. 
To  some  people  who  remembered  the  attitude  of 
the  Irish  Party  during  the  Boer  War,  Mr. 
Redmond's  speech  was  a  wonderful  surprise.  But 
Boer  farmers  were  never  likely  to  overthrow  the 
Empire.  For  Mr.  Redmond  and  the  large 
majority  of  his  colleagues  at  Westminster,  civili- 
zation and  culture  meant  British  civilization  and 
British  culture,  and  there  should  have  been  no 
doubts  in  the  English  mind  as  to  what  their  atti- 
tude would  be  on  the  appearance  of  the  German 
threat.  The  Liberal  Ministers  with  whom  Mr. 
Redmond  was  in  contact  had  no  doubts,  although, 
of  course,  the  question  remained  whether  the 
Party  at  Westminster  would  be  able  to  carry  with 
it  the  whole  opinion  of  Nationalist  Ireland.  Sir 
Edward  Carson's  support  of  the  war  was  a  matter 
of  course;  but  here,  too,  there  was  just  a  slight 
fear  in  the  English  mind  that  the  leader  might  be 
repudiated  by  his  followers.    It  vanished  quickly. 

The  public  bodies  of  the  South  passed  resolutions 
of  confidence  in  Mr.  Redmond,  and  in  the  North 
a  visit  of  Sir  Edward  Carson  to  Belfast  affirmed 
the  unity  of  the  Protestants  of  Ulster.  Only  in 
Dublin  was  there  a  discordant  voice.  The  weekly 
Dublin  newspapers — the  clerical  Leader;  Sinn 
Fein,  the  organ  of  the  Sinn  Fein  movement;  the 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR  47 


Irish  Volunteer,  and  the  Larkinite  Irish  Worker — 
adopted  an  equivocal  attitude  towards  the  new 
situation;  the  revolutionary  Irish  Freedom,  which 
Sean  MacDearniada  edited,  was  frankly  pro- 
German.  Interest  had,  however,  shifted  to 
Westminster,  where  Mr.  Redmond  was  engaged 
in  negotiations  over  the  Home  Rule  Bill.  Finally, 
he  succeeded  in  persuading  the  Government  to 
place  the  measure  on  the  Statute  Book,  but  on 
the  undertaking  that  it  should  not  operate  during 
the  war. 

In  his  speech  on  the  eve  of  the  war,  Mr. 
Redmond  had  called  upon  the  Ulster  and  National 
Volunteers  to  combine  for  the  defence  of  Ireland 
against  Germany;  and  though  this  pious  aspira- 
tion was  never  likely  to  be  fulfilled,  the  expression 
of  it  greatly  pleased  the  more  moderate  Unionists 
of  the  South.  The  National  Volunteers  in 
Leinster,  Munster  and  Connacht  rose  to  the 
height  of  their  popularity.  "  Men  like  Lord 
Powerscourt,  Lord  Fingal,  the  Marquis  of 
Conyngham,  Captain  Bryan  Cooper,  Lord  Arran 
and  numberless  others  came  to  our  help  and  be- 
came officers  of  the  Irish  Volunteers.  We  had 
already  far  surpassed  the  Ulster  Volunteers  in 
numbers,  and  now  also  we  were  ahead  of  them  in 
the  rank  and  position  of  our  officers.  We  had 
succeeded  in  welding  together  all  parties  in  at 
least  three  out  of  the  four  provinces,  and  we  had 
achieved  this  result  without  money  or  patronage, 
but  merely  by  the  patriotism  of  our  people,  the 
moderation  of  our  ends,  and  the  wisdom  of  our 
actions."*  "  When  the  war  broke  out,"  wrote 
an  Irishman  in  London,  Mr.  Robert  Lynd,  "  the 
first  thought  that  entered  my  head  was  that  here 
was  a  miraculous  chance  offered  to  Ireland  to 
repeat  the  happy  events  that  led  up  to  the 
establishment  of  Grattan's  Parliament  in  the 
*  Colonel  Moore's  evidence  at  Royal  Commission. 


48     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


eighteenth  century.  Once  more  invasion  had  be- 
come a  possibility,  though  a  far-off  one." 

The  Ulster  party,  however,  determined  to  retain 
its  independence,  and  refused  to  share  in  the 
emotion  of  a  United  Ireland.  There  was  no  choice 
before  Mr.  Redmond;  he  had  to  descend  to  reali- 
ties, and  to  make  what  he  could  out  of  the  actual 
situation.  But  Home  Rule  on  the  Statute  Book, 
the  Act  suspended,  the  certainty  of  an  Amending 
Bill — this,  in  the  light  of  his  too  optimistic  pro- 
phecies, did  not  seem  a  very  glorious  achievement. 
k'  You  may  remove  your  troops  from  Ireland," 
he  had  told  the  Government  in  a  rhetorical 
moment.  The  troops  had  not  been  removed.  A 
division  among  the  Volunteers  was  now  inevitable. 
So  long  as  Mr.  Redmond  confined  himself  to  vague 
phrases  about  "  Home  Defence,"  the  appearance 
of  unity  could  be  maintained.  "  Pro-German- 
ism '  '  in  Ireland  was  at  this  time  an  unimportant 
sentiment.  But,  besides,  Mr.  Redmond  did 
earnestly  desire  that  his  countrymen  should  play 
a  great  part  in  the  war;  and  when  the  British 
military  authorities  told  him  "  We  do  not  want  a 
force  for  Home  Defence,  we  want  men  to  fight  in 
France,"  he  accepted  the  decision  and  crossed 
the  Channel  to  take  up  his  new  role  of  recruiting 
sergeant  in  Ireland.  Already  Sir  Edward  Carson 
and  the  Ulster  leaders  were  organising  with 
success  a  recruiting  movement  among  the  Ulster 
Volunteers,  and  Mr.  Redmond,  whose  belief  in 
the  propriety  of  the  war  was  not  less  strong  than 
Sir  Edward's,  had  to  overtake  this  activity  of  his 
rivals.  "  The  attitude  of  Sir  Edward  and  the 
Covenanters  had  made,"  said  Mr.  Asquith  and 
other  Ministers,  the  "  coercion  of  Ulster  unthink- 
able." The  feeling  of  Belfast  towards  the  Irish 
Party  was  now  more  contemptuous  than  angry; 
Mr.  Redmond's  success  in  bringing  the  Home  Rule 
Bill  on  to  the  Statute  Book  seemed  to  be  the  result 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR  49 


of  a  petty  intrigue;  but  the  Covenanters  had  no 
need  to  protest  in  any  serious  fashion,  for  they 
knew  that  their  position  was  stronger  than  that 
of  the  Home  Rulers,  being  guaranteed  by  both 
British  parties,  as  the  Nationalist  critics  of  Mr. 
Redmond's  Parliamentary  triumph  were  quick  to 
point  out. 

On  the  25th  September,  1914,  the  Dublin  news- 
papers published  on  their  back  pages  a  ''Manifesto 
of  the  Irish  Volunteers,"  dated  the  9th  September. 
It  was  signed  by  Mr.  MacNeill,  Chairman  of  the 
Provisional  Committee:  by  The  O'Rahilly,  Trea- 
surer of  the  Provisional  Committee;  by  Messrs. 
Thomas  MacDonagh,  Joseph  Plunkett,  P.  H. 
Pearse,  Bulmer  Hobson,  Eamon  Ceannt,  Sean 
MacDearmada  and  Mellowes.  The  purport  of 
the  document  was  to  reaffirm  the  Manifesto  pro- 
posed and  adopted  at  the  original  meeting  of  the 
Volunteers  in  1913.  Mr.  MacNeill  and  his  friends 
described  how,  just  before  the  war  began,  Mr. 
Redmond  had  put  forward  a  claim  to  send  25 
nominees  to  the  Provisional  Committee  of  the 
Volunteers : — 

"  It  is  clear  that  this  proposal  to  throw  the 
country  into  turmoil  and  to  destroy  the  chances  of 
a  Home  Rule  measure  in  the  near  future  must  have 
been  forced  upon  Mr.  Redmond.  Already,  ignor- 
ing the  Irish  Volunteers  as  a  factor  in  the  National 
position,  he  had  consented  to  a  dismemberment  of 
Ireland  which  could  be  made  permanent  by  the 
same  agencies  that  forced  him  to  accept  it  as  tem- 
porary. He  was  now  prepared  to  risk  another 
disruption  and  the  wreck  of  the  Cause  entrusted 
to  him.55 

The  Committee  had  accepted  the  claim  of  Mr. 
Redmond  to  appoint  nominees,  but  they  would 
not  accept  the  recruiting  programme  which  he  had 
just  disclosed  in  a  speech  delivered  on  the  previous 

D 


50     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Sunday  in  the  South  of  Ireland.  Mr.  Redmond 
was  no  longer  entitled,  the  Manifesto  concluded, 
"  to  any  part  in  the  administration  and  guidance 
of  the  Irish  Volunteer  Organization. "  And  those 
who  had  hitherto  been  admitted  to  act  on  the 
Provisional  Committee  by  virtue  of  his  nomina- 
tion would  henceforth  cease  to  belong  to  that  body. 
In  accordance  with  the  Manifesto,  a  section  of  the 
Volunteers  repudiated  Mr.  Redmond's  leadership. 
The  great  majority,  however,  still  adhered  to  him. 
These  became  known  as  "  National  "  Volunteers, 
as  distinguished  from  the  followers  of  the  Com- 
mittee, the  Irish  Volunteers. 

Sir  Roger  Casement,  who  was  now  in  America 
(he  had  been  in  Ireland  a  few  weeks  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  war),  signified  his  adhesion  to  the 
Provisional  Committee,  and  in  a  letter  published 
in  Sinn  Fein  declared  that  Ireland  had  "no  quarrel 
with  Germany."  He  remained  in  New  York  dur- 
ing Au^jast,  slowly  forming  in  his  mind  the  plan 
of  a  visit  to  Berlin,  and  discussing  the  "new 
situation  "  with  Irish- American  leaders,  some  of 
whom  tried  to  dissuade  him  from  the  rash  project. 
Meanwhile  his  friends  in  Dublin  proceeded  with 
some  caution.  In  effect,  of  course,  their  actions 
were  prejudicial  to  recruiting,  and  in  that  degree 
pro-German.  Most  of  the  young  men  in  Ireland 
were  enrolled  as  Volunteers;  and  if  Mr.  MacNeill 
had  carried  with  him  the  larger  part  of  the  force 
the  subsequent  Irish  contribution  to  the  British 
Army  would  have  been  very  seriously  reduced. 
Still,  the  wording  of  the  Manifesto  of  September 
is  worthy  of  note,  for  it  suggests  that  there  was  a 
moderate  as  well  as  an  extremist  party  on  the  Com- 
mittee, and  that  the  moderates  had  at  first  the 
upper  hand,  or  at  least  the  chief  voice.  It  may 
be  urged,  however,  that  the  Committee  would  in 
any  case  hardly  have  disclosed  its  full  aims  and 
opinions.    Most  probably  Mr.  MacNeill  and  his 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR  51 


colleagues  waited  on  events;  some  of  them,  pro- 
bably, being  ready,  if  occasion  occurred,  to  estab- 
lish communication  with  England's  enemies.  One 
member  of  the  Committee  openly  advocated  the 
German  alliance  in  his  paper.  Irish  Freedom. 

Colonel  Moore,  who  supported  Mr.  Redmond's 
policy,   afterwards  described  the  situation  as 
he  saw  it  at  this  time  from  the  inside.    "  When 
at  last  the  (Home  Rule)  Bill  was  signed,  the 
enthusiasm  was  gone,  and  the  fact  that  it  was 
not  to  be  put  into  force  till  after  the  War, 
with  the  threat  of  an  undefined  Amending  Bill, 
left  the  uncertainty  as  great  as  ever.  .  .  .  Nothing 
but  the  enormous  influence  of  Mr.  Redmond  and 
the  leaders  of  the  Irish  Party  prevented  a  uni- 
versal determined  agitation  against  recruiting." 
Colonel  Moore's  solution  was  the  extension  of  the 
Territorial  Act  to  Ireland,  under  which  both  the 
Ulster  and  the  Nationalist  Volunteers  might 
enlist.    Three  months  before  the  war  he  had  dis- 
cussed the  subject  on  these  lines  with  the  British 
War  Secretary  (Col.  Seely).    Early  in  the  war 
an  officer  on  the  Staff  of  the  Commander-in-Chief 
in  Ireland  proposed  a  scheme  by  which  all  the 
Volunteers  in  Ireland,  Unionist  and  Nationalist, 
should  receive  military  training.    He  calculated 
that  if  the  British  troops  were  removed  (as  Mr. 
Redmond  had  suggested)  there  would  be  room  for 
20,000  men  in  barracks  at  one  time,  and  these 
should,  after  a  two  months'  training,  be  passed 
on  to  the  standing  camps,  their  places  in  barracks 
being  taken  by  a  new  levy  of  20,000  volunteers. 
It  is  important  to  note  that  the  most  prominent 
men  on  the  Volunteer  Committee — not  Mr.  Red- 
mond's nominees  only,  but  also  Mr.  MacNeiil 
and  some  of  his  friends — agreed  to  these  pro- 
posals,  and  Mr.   MacNeiil  accompanied  Col. 
Moore  to  the  Royal  Hospital  to  hear  them 
discussed.    Lord  Kitchener,  however,  would  not 


52     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


take  action  in  the  sense  suggested.  "  I  want  to 
lay  stress  on  the  fact,"  said  Col.  Moore,  in  his 
evidence  before  the  Rebellion  Commission,  "  that 
the  leaders  of  the  Irish  Volunteers,  and  among 
them  participators  in  the  late  Rebellion,  were  at 
that  time  willing  to  join  in  the  defence  of  the 
Empire,  but  were  refused  by  the  Government." 
Unionists  also  thought  that  the  Government  erred 
during  this  critical  period,  but  in  the  opposite  way. 
Sir  Morgan  O'Connell,  a  Kerry  landlord,  asserted 
before  the  Commission  that  ' '  when  the  war 
started,  the  vast  majority  of  Irishmen  were  in 
sympathy  with  England."  With  this  statement 
Colonel  Moore  and  the  Nationalist  critics  of  the 
Government  agreed.  But  the  mistake  of  the 
Government,  according  to  the  Unionists,  lay  not 
in  the  hanging  up  of  the  Home  Rule  Bill  or  in  a 
refusal  to  flatter  the  Volunteers,  but  in  the  failure 
to  suppress  the  early  signs  of  the  anti-recruiting 
movement  and  to  attack  the  Sinn  Fein  Press. 

Ireland  now  possessed  three  Volunteer  organi- 
sations: Ulster,  National  (Redmondite),  and 
Irish.  All  were  illegal,  but  circumstances  obliged 
the  Government  to  agree  with  Sir  Edward 
Carson's  dictum:  There  are  illegalities  that  are 
not  crimes.  The  Ulster  and  National  Volunteers, 
though  hostile  party  organisations,  were  at  one 
in  their  views  about  the  war,  and  Ireland's  duty 
in  the  war;  but  the  position  of  Mr.  MacNeill's 
force  was  more  ambiguous.  The  Government 
would  not  proceed  against  this  body  on  the  ground 
of  law ;  but  it  might  threaten  to  apply  the  Defence 
of  the  Realm  Act  against  a  public  danger.  We 
quote  again  from  the  Manifesto  of  September. 
Mr.  Redmond  (it  said)  had  announced  for  the  Irish 
Volunteers  "  a  policy  and  programme  utterly  at 
variance  with  their  own  published  and  accepted 
aims  and  pledges,  but  with  which  his  nominees 
were  of  course  identified.  He  had  declared  it  to  be 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR  53 


the  duty  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  to  take  foreign 
service  under  a  Government  which  was  not  Irish. 
He  had  made  this  announcement  without  consult- 
ing the  Provisional  Committee,  the  Volunteers 
themselves,  or  the  people  of  Ireland.  .  .  Ireland 
could  not  with  honour  or  safety  take  part  in 
foreign  quarrels  other  than  through  the  free  action 
of  a  National  Government  of  her  own."  The 
Committee  re-affirmed  its  opposition  to  any 
diminution  of  the  measure  of  Irish  self-govern- 
ment now  on  the  Statute  Book,  and  repudiated 
any  undertaking,  by  whomsoever  given,  to  consent 
to  the  legislative  dismemberment  of  the  country. 
This  document  was  signed  by  twenty  names. 
They  represented  a  large  majority  of  the  original 
Committee  apart  from  Mr.  Redmond's  nominees. 
A  large  number,  but  not  all,  of  the  signatories 
took  part  in  the  Rebellion  of  April  1916,  or  were 
sentenced  in  connection  therewith. 

Mr.  Redmond  had  his  critics  on  the  Unionist 
side  who  objected  that  some  of  his  speeches  did 
not  sufficiently  identify  Ireland  with  the  war. 
At  Wexford  the  Parliamentary  leader  indignantly 
repudiated  the  charge  that  the  Home  Rule  Bill 
had  reached  the  Statute  Book  as  a  result  of  a 
bargain  with  the  Government  in  regard  to  Irish 
recruiting.  He  also  averred  that  the  number 
of  available  recruits  in  Ireland  in  proportion 
to  population  was  much  smaller  than  in  Great 
Britain,  and  he  complained  that  the  War 
Office  gave  preferential  treatment  to  the  Ulster 
Volunteers.  Early  in  October,  1914,  on  the 
anniversary  of  Parnell's  death,  three  bodies  of 
armed  men  turned  out  in  Dublin — the  Hiber- 
nians, Mr.  Larkin's  Citizen  Army,  and  the  Irish 
Volunteers.  Each  held  a  separate  meeting,  and 
during  the  subsequent  parades,  the  Citizen  Armb- 
and the  Hibernians  came  into  collision.  Rifle 
and  revolver  shots  were  exchanged.  During 


54     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


November  the  authorities  began  to  contemplate 
an  attack  on  the  weekly  press  of  the  city,  and 
early  next  month  the  printers  of  Sinn  Fein,  the 
W orker  and  other  journals  that  had  opposed  re- 
cruiting had  their  attention  drawn  to  certain 
clauses  in  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act.  As  a 
result,  Sinn  Fein  and  the  Worker  ceased  to  ap- 
pear. It  was  about  this  time  that  James  Larkin 
betook  himself  to  America — unwillingly,  it  is 
supposed.  The  Irish  Volunteer  continued  publi- 
cation; but  it  was  now  edited  by  Mr.  Mac- 
Neill,  who  refrained  from  showing  any  direct 
hostility  to  the  recruiting  movement.  Presently 
Mr.  Griffith,  who  had  been  editor  of  the  suppressed 
Sinn  Fein,  resumed  operations  in  a  paper  called 
Nationality;  the  Worker  reappeared  under  James 
Connolly's  editorship  as  the  Irish  Worker;  these, 
with  two  new  journals,  the  Spark  and  Honesty, 
composed  what  was  roughly  described  as  the 
Sinn  Fein  Press.  The  Irish  Government  turned 
its  attention  to  other  matters,  such  as  the  employ- 
ment of  disaffected  persons  in  the  Post  Office  and 
elsewhere;  Monteith,  of  the  Ordnance  Survey,  an 
ex-soldier  and  a  captain  in  the  Irish  Volunteers, 
was  suddenly  ordered  to  leave  Dublin  within  24 
hours.  After  a  short  visit  to  America,  Monteith 
made  his  way  to  Germany,  where  he  joined  Sir 
Roger  Casement;  he  subsequently  accompanied 
the  ill-fated  expedition  to  Ireland  in  April,  1916. 

Lord  Aberdeen's  departure  from  Ireland  in 
January,  1915,  was  a  triumph,  on  the  one  hand 
for  the  Unionists,  on  the  other  for  Sinn  Fein. 
There  had  been  some  political  friction  between 
the  Unionists  and  the  Home  Rulers  of  the  Irish 
Red  Cross  organisation.  The  policy  of  the  Viceroy 
and  his  wife  had  been  directed  towards  securing 
the  favour  of  the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party  and 
the  "  moderate  "  Home  Rulers;  and  Lady  Aber- 
deen sent  a  private  letter  to  the  editor  of  the 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR 


55 


Freeman's  Journal,  in  which,  after  speaking  of 
the  11  consummation  of  our  common  hopes  93  (an 
allusion  to  the  Irish  Party's  attitude  towards  the 
war),  she  referred  to  "  a  bit  of  a  plot  "  on  the  part 
of  the  Unionist  women  to  capture  the  Red  Cross 
organisation  in  Dublin.  The  letter  came  by  some 
means  or  other  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Arthur 
Griffith,  who  reproduced  it  in  facsimile  in  his 
newspaper.  After  that,  Lord  Aberdeen  had  to 
go.  He  was  replaced  by  Lord  Wimborne,  from 
whose  regime  the  Unionists  expected  better  things ; 
that  is,  non-interference  in  politics  and  strong 
action  against  the  Sinn  Feiners.  Lord  and  Lady 
Aberdeen  toured  the  United  States  on  behalf  of 
Irish  charities;  they  hoped,  incidentally,  to  com- 
bat the  anti-English  propaganda  of  the  Clan-na- 
Gael. 

The  Irish  Partv  still  felt  confident  of  its 
position  in  the  country;  but  the  hope  of  winning 
over  the  Ulster  Protestants  by  soft  words  had 
almost  been  abandoned.  At  the  Belfast  Review 
of  the  National  Volunteers  Mr.  Dillon  resorted 
to  a  threat.  "  If,"  he  said,  "  our  enemies  in  the 
future  attempt  to  rob  Ireland  of  the  fruits  of  her 
sacrifices,  the  deeds  of  her  soldiers  on  the  fields 
of  Europe  will  stand  behind  her  as  a  mighty  argu- 
ment which  will  make  our  cause,  I  believe, 
successful.  .  .  .  We  will  never  consent — and  I 
say  it  in  the  face  of  the  Nationalists  of  Belfast, 
who  may  yet  have  to  make  good  my  words — to 
divide  this  island  or  this  nation."  Mr.  Redmond 
chose  his  words  more  carefully,  while  complain- 
ing that  the  War  Office  in  its  dealings  with  Ire- 
land had  favoured  the  Covenanters  but  distrusted 
the  Nationalists.  Thus,  the  Ulster  Division  of 
the  new  Army  was  composed  wholly  of  Carsonite 
Volunteers  and  their  sympathisers,  and  it  was 
in  fact  a  homogeneous  political  body.  Several  of 
the  men  who  had  been  engaged  in  "  the  grave  and 


56     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


unprecedented  outrage  "  at  Larne  now  occupied 
comfortable  war  situations.  On  the  other  hand, 
owing  to  the  suspicion  of  Nationalist  Ireland 
entertained  at  the  War  Office,  an  ''Irish  Division" 
for  the  new  Army  was  only  now  in  process  of 
formation.  There  may  have  been  some  substance 
in  the  complaint;  but  it  was  a  confession,  perhaps 
an  involuntary  one,  of  personal  failure.  Had 
Mr.  Redmond  been  a  truly  representative  leader 
he  could  have  had  his  ' '  Irish  Division  ' '  without 
delay.  But  in  fact  he  had  not  asked  for  it.  What 
Nationalists  had  hoped  in  the  early  months  of  the 
war  was  that  Mr.  Redmond's  support  of  the 
Empire  would  reconcile  Ulster  Protestants  to  the 
idea  of  Home  Rule.  It  had  singularly  failed  to 
effect  this  change.  "  Ulstermen,"  wrote  the 
Belfast  Newsletter,  "  having  fought  to  deliver 
Belgium  from  the  Prussian  aggressor,  will  not 
tamely  submit  to  the  subjugation  of  their  pro- 
vince." The  Commander  of  the  Ulster  Volunteers 
avowed  that  his  men,  now  "  thoroughly  trained 
and  with  vast  experience  of  war,"  would  have  no 
difficulty  in  relegating  Home  Rule  to  the  devil. 

The  formation  of  the  Coalition  Government  in 
May  1915,  added  to  Mr.  Redmond's  difficulties. 
Both  Sir  Edward  Carson  and  himself  were  offered 
seats  in  the  new  Cabinet.  Mr.  Redmond  refused 
the  offer,  and  accompanied  his  refusal  with  an 
order  for  the  reorganisation  of  the  Party  machine 
in  all  the  Nationalist  constitutencies.  It  was  a 
reassertion  of  the  old  Parnellite  traditions  which 
forbade  a  member  of  the  Irish  Party  to  accept 
positions  in  or  under  the  Government.  Why  the 
Party  should  have  summoned  up  the  shade  of 
Parnell  at  this  moment  is  a  mystery;  for,  in  Mr. 
Redmond's  own  account  of  things,  the  whole  face 
of  Anglo-Irish  politics  had  been  changed  first  by 
the  war  and  secondly  by  the  Home  Rule  Act. 
Parnell's  policy  of  independent  opposition  had 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR  57 


long  ago  been  abandoned  for  an  alliance  with  the 
British  Radicals.  There  is  no  doubt,  however, 
that  the  Party  was  seriously  perturbed  by  the 
attitude  of  the  Government,  and  not  only  because 
the  change  meant  that  Irish  Unionists  could  now 
put  in  claims  for  those  positions  that  are  the 
rewards  of  party  services.  The  Freeman's 
Journal  wrote: — "  For  it  is  not  at  all  impossible 
that,  under  the  shadow  of  the  Coalition,  those 
whose  intrigues  may  have  brought  it  about  may 
attempt  to  carry  into  execution  designs  with  which 
millions  of  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen  are  as 
much  in  disagreement  as  they  are  agreed  on  the 
prosecution  of  the  war  to  an  effective  and  secure 
finish."  The  allusion,  of  course,  was  to  con- 
scription. The  Freeman  continued:  f'  The  crown 
of  the  scandal  is  the  appointment  of  Sir  Edward 
Carson.  The  appointment  is  a  party  outrage. 
He  did  not  hobnob  with  German  philosophers; 
but  he  lunched  with  the  Kaiser ;  and  he  was  aware 
of  the  visits  of  the  German  Embassy  to  Ulster. 
Baron  Kuhlmann  attended  at  Belfast  to  review 
'  the  troops;'  the  troops  that  Colonel  Repington, 
the  slanderer  of  Kitchener,  assured  Europe  were 
fit  to  meet  the  most  seasoned  troops  of  Continental 
armies."  His  followers,  generally,  thought  that 
Mr.  Redmond  had  done  wisely  in  standing  out  of 
the  Government.  There  was  a  proposal  to  ap- 
point a  Unionist  lawyer  and  politician  as  the  new 
Lord  Chancellor ;  the  Party  was  sufficiently  strong 
to  defeat  it.  To  the  revolutionary  Nationalists, 
Sinn  Feiners,  and  Irish  Volunteers,  these  questions 
of  patronage  and  administrative  changes  did  not 
matter  much.  They  were  ready,  however,  to  ex- 
ploit the  growing  fear  of  conscription  to  the  profit 
of  their  organisation.  It  was  about  this  time  that 
the  pacificist,  Mr.  Sheehy  Skeffington,  leader  of 
a  party  of  one  in  Ireland,  was  arrested  and  im- 
prisoned for  making  a  speech  against  recruiting. 


58     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Mr.  Skeffington  went  on  hunger-strike,  and  had 
to  be  released;  he  afterwards  visited  America  on 
a  lecture  tour. 

The  objection  in  Ireland  to  conscription  was  by- 
no  means  confined  to  the  pro-German  or  anti- 
English  elements  or  to  those  Nationalists  who 
preached  neutrality.  It  was  foolish  to  pretend 
that  the  average  Irishman  felt  as  keenly  about  the 
war  as  the  Englishmen,  and  Mr.  Redmond  would 
have  lost  the  confidence  of  his  own  people  if  com- 
pulsory service  had  been  introduced  into  Ireland. 
On  the  representations  of  Mr.  Redmond  and  Mr. 
Dillon,  Ireland  was  "  excluded "  first  from  the 
Registration  Bill  and  secondly  from  the  Military 
Service  Bill.  There  were  people  who  asked  why 
the  distinction  should  be  made,  seeing  that  Ireland, 
on  the  account  of  her  own  representatives,  was  as 
eager  as  any  part  of  the  United  Kingdom  to  see 
the  war  through  to  a  successful  issue.  No  answer 
to  the  pertinent  enquiry  was  forthcoming,  but 
among  those  who  realised  that  the  Volunteers 
were  in  earnest  in  threatening  to  resist  compul- 
sion by  force  were  Mr.  Dillon  himself  and  the 
Under  Secretary,  Sir  Mathew  Nathan.  Lord 
Wimborne,  on  the  other  hand,  wanted  to  arrest 
the  "  suspect  "  leaders,  and  thought  that  the  ex- 
tension of  conscription  to  Ireland  would  provide 
an  excellent  justification  for  this  course. 

Many  Irishmen,  strongly  inclined  towards  the 
Allied  cause  and  hitherto  numbered  among  Mr. 
Redmond's  supporters,  began  to  think  that  the 
equivocal  situation  should  be  ended.  The  remedy 
suggested  in  New  Ireland  was  the  immediate 
operation  of  Home  Rule,  coupled  with  a  frank  as- 
sertion of  Ireland's  claim,  as  a  poor  and  depopu- 
lated country,  to  special  treatment  in  the  matter 
of  taxation  and  recruitment.  By  the  wording  of  the 
Suspensory  Act  of  September,  1914,  the  operation 
of  Home  Rule  was  postponed  for  the  period  of  a 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR  59 


year.  When  September,  1915,  arrived,  the 
Government  sought  and  obtained  an  Order  in 
Council  for  a  further  postponement  of  Home  Rule 
till  March,  1916.  The  protests  of  New  Ireland 
met  with  no  success.  The  Dublin  Corporation, 
which  had  intended  to  pass  a  resolution  in 
favour  of  immediate  Home  Rule,  changed  its 
mind  on  the  representation  of  the  Irish  Party. 
When  March,  1916,  arrived,  another  postpone- 
ment for  another  six  months  was  effected. 
Mr.  Redmond's  supporters,  arguing  against  the 
writers  in  New  Ireland  who  pressed  that  steps 
should  be  taken  towards  the  establishment  of  an 
Irish  Parliament,  urged  that  it  would  be  an  act 
of  madness,  from  the  practical  point  of  view,  to 
make  so  great  a  constitutional  change  in  war 
time.  Not  many  months  were  to  pass,  however, 
before  Great  Britain  commissioned  one  of  her 
principal  statesmen  to  set  up  at  once,  and  at  any 
cost,  some  sort  of  an  Irish  Legislature.  Here 
one  may  anticipate  a  little.  In  his  speech  at  the 
Ulster  Nationalist  Convention  of  June  1916, 
called  together  to  consider  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
proposal  for  immediate  Home  Rule  on  the  basis 
of  the  exclusion  of  six  Ulster  counties,  Mr.  Red- 
mond, in  urging  the  delegates  to  accept  this  com- 
promise, expressed  the  opinion  that  the  "  Irish 
Cause  "  had  been  prejudiced  by  the  Rebellion  of 
Easter  Week,  though  not  so  seriously  as  at  one 
time  seemed  probable.  He  had  expected  that  the 
Rebellion  would  provoke  in  England  an  immediate 
demand  for  the  repeal  of  the  Home  Rule  Act. 
Up  to  the  Rebellion,  everything,  according  to 
Mr.  Redmond,  had  been  going  well.  The  war 
had  to  be  fought  to  a  finish,  but  it  seemed  to  him 
possible  that  Ulster,  after  the  war,  would  not 
require  Mr.  Asquith  to  redeem  his  promise  of  an 
Amending  Bill.  But  the  whole  situation  had  been 
swept  away  by  the  Rebellion.    Now  there  was  no 


60     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


alternative  to  the  acceptance  of  Mr.  Lloyd 
George's  proposals  but  the  indefinite  continuation 
of  martial  law. 

The  results  of  the  recruiting  propaganda  gave 
some  indication  of  the  state  of  opinion  in  the 
country.  In  the  early  months  of  1915  the  figures 
went  very  high.  In  August,  General  Friend, 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Forces  in  Ireland, 
stated  that  80,000  men — the  infantry  contribution 
alone — had  joined  the  Army  from  Ireland  since 
the  beginning  of  the  war;  and  of  these  recruits 
44,000  were  Roman  Catholics,  and,  presumably, 
therefore,  Nationalists.  The  figures  given  by  Mr. 
Redmond  were  lower,  and  one  of  the  speeches  of 
the  Irish  Parliamentary  leader  contained  the 
startling  announcement  that  another  80,000  men 
had  been  rejected  on  medical  grounds  at  the  Irish 
recruiting  offices.  After  the  exemption  of  Ireland 
from  the  National  Registration  Bill,  Lord  Wim- 
borne  was  put  in  charge  of  a  special  recruiting 
effort.  He  called  for  10,000  men  during  the  month 
of  November,  and  a  steady  flow  of  a  thousand  a 
week  thereafter.  He  nearly  got  the  10,000;  but 
the  "  steady  flow  "  did  not  follow.  Further 
figures  of  Irish  recruiting  were  published  on 
December  15th,  1915.  They  read  as  follows: — 
Leinster,  27,458 ;  Ulster,  48,760;  Munster,  14,190; 
Connacht,  3,589.  Perhaps  one-fourth  of  the 
Ulstermen  were  Hibernians  and  Roman  Catholics. 
The  number  of  men  between  the  ages  of  19  and 
41  in  the  four  provinces  was  estimated  at  563,115. 

The  change  that  occurred  in  the  latter  half  of 
1915  may  be  attributed  to  many  causes.  First 
among  them,  no  doubt,  was  the  increasing  vigour 
of  the  Sinn  Fein  propaganda.  But  also  there 
grew  up  a  feeling — and  it  existed  even  among 
Nationalists  who  called  themselves  pro-Ally — 
that  Ireland  had  a  limited  interest  in  the  war. 
Thirdly,  as  in  England,  so  in  Ireland,  the  appeal 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR  61 


of  adventure  had  been  by  this  time  pretty  fully 
exploited;  economic  pressure,  too,  had  done  its 
work.  And,  finally,  the  argument  about  Home 
Rule  on  the  Statute  Book  had,  after  the  advent 
of  the  Coalition  Government,  lost  its  power  of 
inducing  Irishmen  to  join  the  Army.  "  If  there 
is  to  be  a  third  postponement  in  the  coming 
March,"  wrote  New  Ireland,  "  the  country  will 
be  utterly  exasperated,  and  the  Irish  Party  will 
have  become  discredited  beyond  hope  of  recovery. 
The  official  Nationalist  policy  has  degenerated  in- 
to one  long  humiliating  effort  to  impress  upon  the 
English  public  mind  that  Irishmen  have  ceased 
to  think  of  Irish  interests  and  care  for  nothing 
but  the  victory  of  the  Empire;  and  the  only 
triumphs  that  policy  can  secure  are  the  occasional 
patronising  references  in  the  English  Tory  Press 
to  the  miraculous  transformation  of  Ireland's 
attitude.  If  either  history  or  the  present  psycho- 
logy of  nations  have  any  bearing  upon  the  present 
day,  no  wilder  gamble  was  ever  played  with  the 
future  destinies  of  Ireland."  Nothing  now  was 
going  well,  whatever  point  of  view  one  took,  unless 
it  were  that  of  those  determined  upon  revolution 
at  all  costs  or  that  of  those  at  all  costs  determined 
upon  the  defeat  of  Home  Rule.  A  note  of  panic 
had  appeared  even  in  the  speeches  of  the  op- 
timistic Mr.  Redmond.  That  the  discontent  among 
Nationalists  was  not  confined  to  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers and  their  sympathisers  was  shown  by  the 
attitude  of  the  loyalist  Independent,  a  widely 
circulated  newspaper  that  reached  quarters  un- 
touched by  Sinn  Fein,  towards  the  new  war  taxa- 
tion. The  financial  clauses  of  the  Home  Rule 
Act  had  been  based  on  the  allegation  of  Irish 
insolvency,  in  consequence  of  which  the  Imperial 
Parliament  derived  the  right  to  control  all  but 
a  few  minor  powers  over  Irish  taxation.  With 
the  increase  of  taxation  since  the  outbreak  of  the 


62     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


war  Ireland  was  now  paying  for  Irish  expenditure 
to  the  full,  and  in  addition  £5,000,000  annually 
as  an  Imperial  contribution,  although  it  had  been 
argued  during  the  debates  on  the  Home  Rule  Bill, 
both  by  the  Unionists  and  Liberals,  that  Ireland 
was  then  taxed  to  the  utmost,  and  the  only  possible 
road  to  solvency  in  a  self -governed  Ireland  would 
be  by  way  of  economies  in  administration.  More- 
over, the  proportion  of  taxable  income  now  taken 
from  Ireland  was  more  than  twice  that  taken 
from  Great  Britain;  nor  did  the  money  go,  as  it 
went  in  England,  to  the  stimulation  of  war  indus- 
tries. The  Budget  of  the  spring  of  1916,  while 
it  did  not  discriminate  against  Ireland,  failed  to 
recognise  Ireland's  special  case;  the  £5,000,000 
of  Imperial  contribution  was  almost  doubled,  and 
the  Independent  raised  a  bitter  cry  against  Mr. 
Redmond's  neglect  to  make  a  protest.  Resolutions 
against  the  new  Budget  were  passed  by  many 
public  boards  throughout  Ireland,  and  the  Dublin 
Mansion  House  was  the  scene  of  a  large  denunci- 
atory assembly. 

These  events  tended  to  an  increased  membership 
of  the  Irish  Volunteers,  and  many  Nationalists 
who  had  gone  with  Mr.  Redmond  at  the  time  of 
the  split,  and  were  quite  opposed  to  anything  in 
the  nature  of  seditious  propaganda,  began  to  look 
upon  Mr.  MacNeill's  organisation  with  a  more 
sympathetic  eye.  The  agitating  question  now — 
that  is,  during  the  early  months  of  1916 — was 
whether  the  initiative  in  the  Volunteer  movement 
still  remained  with  Mr.  MacNeill  or  had  not  passed 
into  the  hands  of  revolutionists.  In  March  the 
rumour  was  that  Mr.  MacNeill's  will  had  pre- 
vailed. The  Volunteers  were  still  a  "  defensive  " 
force,  that  is  to  say,  there  would  be  no  fighting 
except  in  the  event  of  an  attempt  being  made  to 
deprive  them  of  arms,  or  the  introduction  of  con- 
scription into  Ireland.    The  Irish  Party  at  this 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR  63 


time  could  probably  have  taken  some  of  the  wind 
out  of  the  revolutionists'  sails  if  they  had  attacked 
the  Budget  and  withdrawn  their  support  from  the 
Government.  Mr.  Redmond,  however,  decided 
against  any  compromise  of  this  nature,  and  he 
denounced  the  ' '  overtaxation  ' '  and  ' '  Home  Rule 
in  March  "  movements  with  vigour.  He  recog- 
nised that  an  undertaking  with  the  disaffected 
elements  could  only  be  reached  at  the  cost  of  dis- 
crediting himself  in  the  eyes  of  English  public 
opinion;  it  would  be  said  that  Ireland  was  noi 
giving  tlie  war  a  whole-hearted  support.  More- 
over, the  menace  to  his  own  position  in  Ireland 
seemed  to  be  slight  owing  to  the  fundamental 
differences  in  the  point  of  view  of  the  critics.  Mr. 
W.  M.  Murphy  of  the  Independent  joining  in  the 
protests  of  Liberty  Hall  against  the  "  overtaxa- 
tion of  Ireland  "  was  a  spectacle  for  laughter 
rather  than  for  tears. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  there  was  in  this 
situation  adequate  material  for  a  serious  Irish 
rebellion.  Probably  there  was  not,  if  the  situa- 
tion had  remained  unaffected  by  any  outside  in- 
fluence. But  it  was  a  situation  peculiarly 
susceptible  of  response  to  external  stimulus  and 
support.  Such  external  stimulus  and  support 
proved  the  determining  factor  in  the  subsequent 
development  of  events,  and  it  is  to  them  that  we 
must  look  for  the  proximate  causes  of  the  Rebel- 
lion. We  may  deal  very  briefly,  therefore,  with 
the  superficial  aspect  of  the  developing  situation 
in  Ireland  itself  at  this  stage. 

As  the  early  spring  of  1916  advanced  it  became 
clear  that  the  will  of  the  more  extreme  section  of 
the  Volunteers'  leaders  was  gradually  prevailing 
over  that  of  the  more  moderate,  and  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Volunteers  received  from  the  Irish 
Executive  an  increasing  attention,  particulars  of 
which  are  detailed  in  a  later  chapter.    It  was 


64     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


evidently  not  these  measures  of  the  Executive, 
however,  but  the  changing  character  of  the  con- 
trol of  the  Volunteer  organisation,  which  produced 
on  the  part  of  that  organisation  a  more  bellicose 
attitude.  Towards,  the  end  of  March  1916  the 
Council  of  the  Volunteers  issued  a  Manifesto 
which  was  printed  in  the  Dublin  newspapers,  and 
was  in  the  following  terms  : — 

With  regard  to  the  recent  proceedings  of  the 
Government  towards  the  Irish  Volunteers,  the 
Council  of  the  Irish  Volunteers,  which  met  on  the 
26th  inst.,  wish  to  warn  the  public  that  the 
general  tendency  of  the  Government's  action  is 
to  force  a  highly  dangerous  situation.  The  Govern- 
ment is  well  aware  that  the  possession  of  arms 
is  essential  to  the  Irish  Volunteer  organisation, 
and  the  Volunteers  cannot  submit  to  being  dis- 
armed either  in  numbers  or  detail  without  sur- 
rendering and  abandoning  the  position  they  have 
held  at  all  times  since  their  first  formation.  The 
Volunteer  organisation  also  cannot  maintain  its 
efficiency  without  organisers.  The  raiding  for 
arms  and  attempted  disarming  of  men,  therefore, 
in  the  natural  course  of  things  can  only  be  met 
by  resistance  and  bloodshed.  None  of  the  Irish 
Volunteers  recognise,  or  will  ever  recognise,  the 
right  of  the  Government  to  disarm  them  or  to  im- 
prison their  officers  and  men  in  any  fashion.  The 
Council  also  draws  attention  to  the  repeated 
instances  in  which  the  Government's  arbitrary 
action  has  been  associated  with  the  movements  of 
hostile  crowds,  which  are  led  to  believe  that  they 
act  under  Government  approval.  In  this  Council's 
belief,  this  feature  of  the  case  is  based  on  a  de- 
liberate policy  of  creating  factious  hostility 
between  sections  of  the  Irish  people.  Nothing 
need  be  hoped  from  remonstrance  with  the  Govern- 
ment, but  we  appeal  to  the  Irish  people  to  look 


IRELAND  DURING  THE  WAR  65 


closely  into  the  facts  in  every  instance  and  keep 
a  watch  on  the  conduct  and  policy  of  the  authori- 
ties, and  to  fix  the  responsibility  for  any  grave 
consequence  that  may  arise." 

This  Manifesto  followed  upon  an  ugly  affray 
between  Volunteers  and  police  at  Tullamore  in 
King's  County.  A  hostile  stone-throwing  crowd 
gathered  outside  the  local  Volunteer  Hall.  The 
police  failed  to  disperse  the  crowd,  and  the  Volun- 
teers in  reply  to  the  attack  fired  shots  from  the 
windows  into  the  air,  whereupon  the  police  forced 
an  entrance  into  the  hall  and  attempted  to  dis- 
arm the  occupants;  in  the  scuffle  that  followed 
one  of  their  number  was  seriously  wounded. 
In  April,  though  the  Irish  Executive  had  not 
vet  determined  to  attack  the  Volunteers,  having; 
as  yet  no  absolute  proof  that  they  proposed 
rebellion,  the  advanced  wing  of  the  Volunteer  lea- 
ders, doubtless  thinking  that  the  time  was  now  ripe 
for  bringing  their  followers  into  a  belligerent  frame 
of  mind,  took  a  further  provocative  step.  On 
April  19th,  four  days  before  the  outbreak  of  the 
Rebellion,  Alderman  Kelly,  a  member  of  the 
original  Sinn  Fein  party,  but  certainly  no  re- 
volutionary, read  out  at  a  meeting  of  the  Dublin 
Corporation  a  document  sent  to  him  which  was 
described  as  being*  "  addressed  to  and  on  the  files 
of  "  Dublin  Castle,  and  containing  the  sketch  of 
an  elaborate  military  plan  for  the  arrest  of  the 
Volunteer  leaders  and  the  seizure  of  various  pre- 
mises in  Dublin.*  Copies  of  this  document,  which 
was  at  once  branded  by  the  authorities  as  an  entire 
fabrication,  were  printed  at  and  circulated  from 
Liberty  Hall,  the  headquarters  of  the  Citizen 
Army,  with  the  evident  object  of  inducing  the 
members  of  that  body  and  of  the  Irish  Volunteers 

*  See  Appendix  A.,  Report  of  the  Royal  Commission  on  the 
Rebellion. 

E 


66     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


to  believe  that  the  Irish  Executive  contemplated 
their  immediate  disarmament,  and  so  produce  in 
them  a  temper  favourable  to  participation  in  that 
rebellion  for  which  the  leaders'  plans  were  now 
all  but  ripe. 

We  may  note  here,  before  we  proceed  to  deal 
with  the  personalities  of  these  leaders  and  the 
development  of  events  outside  Ireland  which  had 
been  instrumental  in  bringing  them  to  the  point 
of  armed  rebellion,  a  feature  of  some  importance 
in  connection  with  the  forged  document.  Among 
the  premises  which  it  was  alleged  in  it  that  the 
authorities  contemplated  isolating  was  the  Roman 
Catholic  Archbishop's  House.  This  suggestion 
appeared  to  aim  at  arousing  sectarian  animosity. 
If  this  was  the  object  of  the  author  of  the  document, 
he  failed  completely  in  his  purpose.  A  religious 
element  did  not  enter  in  any  way  into  the  Rebellion 
of  1916,  as  it  had  entered  conspicuously  into  rebel- 
lions of  the  past.  The  rebels  of  1916  did  not 
hesitate  to  seize  a  convent  which  occupied  a 
position  of  some  tactical  importance,  nor  did 
they  scruple  to  send  about  his  business  any 
ecclesiastic  who  came  to  them  with  unpalatable 
advice.  Beyond  this  incident  of  the  forged  docu- 
ment before  the  outbreak,  no  echo  was  heard  in 
the  Rebellion  of  the  old  sectarian  feuds. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THE    REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS 

The  leaders  of  the  revolutionary  movement  of 
1914-16  were  men  for  the  most  part  unknown 
outside  of  Ireland.  Even  in  Ireland  itself  the 
names  of  Pearse,  MacDonagh,  Joseph  Plunkett, 
de  Valera  and  Ceannt  were  only  names,  if  that, 
to  many  Nationalists  and  to  most  Unionists.  With 
the  exception  of  James  Connolly  none  of  them  was 
a  figure  in  what  is  called  public  life.  Only  Roger 
Casement  had  renown  in  the  world,  and  even  he 
did  not  aspire  to  a  political  career.  There  may 
have  been  a  Mazzini  in  the  group,  but  a  Cavour, 
even  in  miniature,  was  sadly  lacking,  although 
Casement's  idea  of  leading  Ireland  to  nationhood 
by  way  of  an  independent  excursion  into  European 
politics  reminds  one  a  little  of  Cavour's  pro- 
gramme for  Italy  during  the  Crimean  War. 
Pearse  was  a  schoolmaster — not,  it  is  true,  an 
ordinary  schoolmaster — and  his  best  thought  had 
been  devoted  to  educational  problems.  Thomas 
MacDonagh  was  a  competent  man  of  letters. 
Ceannt  and  Joseph  Plunkett  were  amateurs  of  the 
arts.  Learned  men,  not  in  the  Gaelic  League 
alone,  held  Eoin  (John)  MacNeill  in  high  esti- 
mation. But  best  known  to  the  average  news- 
paper reader  were  Madame  Marcievicz  and  Major 
MacBride,  the  one  because  her  versatility  had 
brought  her  into  contact  with  all  sides  of  Irish  life, 
the  other  because  of  his  exploits  during  the  Boer 
War  and  his  marriage  to  one  of  the  most  celebrated 
women  of  her  time. 

The  movement  has  been  called  idealist,  and  in 
one  sense  the  term  is  singularly  appropriate ;  for 


68     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


these  men  were  not  of  the  type  that  in  any  country 
acquires  power,  or  indeed  desires  it.  Technically, 
in  matters  of  politics,  Pearse  and  his  friends 
would  have  been  even  less  efficient  than  the  actual 
oligarchy  of  professional  democrats  which  con- 
trolled the  constitutional  Home  Rule  move- 
ment. The  Irish  Parliamentary  agitation  had  at 
least  produced  men  who  were  fitted  for  demagogic 
dictatorship.  1  'What  is  called  the  Sinn  Fein  move- 
ment is  simply  the  temporary  cohesion  of  isolated 
cranks  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  and 
it  would  be  impossible  to  say  exactly  what 
their  principles  are,  or  what  their  object  is.  In 
fact,  they  have  no  policy  and  no  leader  and  do  not 
amount  to  a  row  of  pins  as  far  as  the  future  of 
Ireland  is  concerned. 5 '  Thus  Mr.  John  Redmond 
on  the  31st  July,  1915.  The  contempt,  needless 
to  say,  was  mutual. 

Would  Pearse  and  his  comrades,  in  the  event  of 
success,  have  been  content  to  be  '  'unacknowledged 
legislators,"  after  the  fashion  of  the  poets?  Or 
would  they  have  wished  to  take  part  in  the  rough 
and  tumble  of  Irish  life  ?  One  cannot  imagine  them 
the  leaders  of  a  dominant  and  organised  party  in 
the  State.  The  whole  motif  of  the  rebellion  was 
peculiarly  Irish,  and  even  un-European;  we  seek 
almost  vainly  for  analogies  from  abroad  which 
might  help  us  to  understand  :  the  real  standard  of 
judgment  is  in  Irish  history.  A  Madame  Marcievicz 
or  a  Major  MacBride  were  perhaps  universal  types, 
who,  wherever  they  lived,  would  have  been  turbu- 
lent members  of  society  as  it  is  at  present  consti- 
tuted. Connolly,  too,  one  can  "  place;"  he  was  a 
Radical-Socialist  whose  conversation  would  have 
been  understood  abroad ;  an  ideologue  maybe,  but 
not  a  dreamer ;  he  had  executive  ability  and  in  any 
country  would  have  been  a  leader  among  agitated 
men. 

The  closest  analogy  in  Irish  history  is  the  Young 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  69 


Ireland  movement  of  '48.  The  Rebellion  of  '98 
was  inspired  by  French  democratic  ideas,  though 
it  soon  acquired  the  character  of  a  civil  war  of 
races  and  sects.  But  in  '48  as  in  '16  the  Irish 
rebels  were  sentimentally  isolated.  "  In  the  year 
1848,  when  every  throne  in  Europe  rocked,  and 
every  race  was  disturbed,  Ireland  had  her  own 
little  rebellion:  it  was  easily  suppressed.  This 
revolutionary  attempt  passed,  so  to  speak,  un- 
perceived.  No  one  troubled  about  the  fate  of 
Ireland  or  had  a  tear  of  pity  for  her  prisoners, 
one  of  whom  was  descended  from  the  ancient  Kings 
of  Munster.  The  Catholics  themselves,  the  only 
Party  in  Europe  which  at  any  time  has  shown 
sympathy  for  Ireland,  were  unmoved.  Must  we 
attribute  this  indifference  to  the  state  of  confusion 
into  which  Europe  was  then  plunged?"  The 
passage  is  taken  from  an  article,  which  we  have 
already  mentioned,  by  the  late  Emile  Montegut 
on  John  Mitchel,  the  Young  Ireland  leader,  an 
article  which  was  published  sixty  years  ago  in  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes.  Montegut,  later  in  the 
same  essay,  says  of  Ireland:  "  She  is  entirely 
isolated  in  our  Occident ;  in  all  that  exists  nothing 
resembles  her,  nowhere  does  she  find  a  reflection 
of  herself." 

One  of  the  witnesses  before  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion described  the  leaders  of  '16  as  a  "  literary 
lot ";  here  is  another  point  in  common  with  the 
men  of  '48 — Thomas  Davis,  John  Mitchel,  and 
Gavan  Duffy.  There  is  certainly  no  book  of  the 
'16  movement  that  equals  as  an  individual  utter- 
ance Mitchel's  Jail  Journal,  which,  however,  was 
written  after  the  collapse  of  the  '48  rising — '16 
may  yet  produce  its  Mitchel.  The  Young  Ire- 
landers  as  a  rule  used  poetry  as  a  weapon  of 
patriotic  propaganda ;  they  had  a  greater  gift  for 
political  and  popular  verse  than  either  Pearse  or 
MacDonagh.    These  last  had  felt  the  effect  of  the 


70     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Irish  literary  revival  which  had  turned  to  the  folk 
spirit  for  impulse,  and  has  reacted  against  all 
that  savours  of  the  rhetoric  of  patriotism.  The 
poets  of  '16  sought  maybe  to  "  emancipate  the 
National  mind  by  means  of  individual  utterance," 
or  to  "  interpret  the  soul  of  the  people;"  but  they 
did  not  make  the  mistake  of  confusing  national  agi- 
tation with  Nationalist  propaganda.  Propaganda,  as 
MacDonagh  himself  said,  has  rarely  produced 
a  fine  poem.  A  great  hymn,  whether  of  religion 
or  patriotism,  is  rarely  other  than  the  cry  of  a 
poet  calling  to  God  or  his  country  as  if  he  alone 
experienced  the  emotion.  The  writer  during  the 
last  twenty  years  who  came  nearest  to  expressing 
Irish  patriotic  emotion  in  great  verse  was  Lionel 
Johnson,  an  Englishman  and  a  recluse: — 

A  dream !  A  dream !  an  ancient  dream ! 
Yet  ere  peace  come  to  Innisfail, 
Some  weapons  on  some  field  must  gleam, 
Some  burning  glory  fire  the  Gael. 

That  field  may  lie  beneath  the  sun, 
Fair  for  the  treading  of  an  host: 
That  field  in  realms  of  thought  be  won, 
And  armed  hands  do  their  uttermost. 

Some  way,  to  faithful  Innisfail, 
Shall  come  the  majesty  and  awe 
Of  martial  truth  that  must  prevail 
To  lay  on  all  the  eternal  law.* 

*  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats  in  his  essay  on  "  Poetry  and  Tradi- 
tion," speaking  of  his  collaboration  with  Lionel  Johnson  in 
the  'nineties,  says: — "  We  sought  to  make  a  more  subtle 
rhythm  .  .  .  but  always  to  remember  certain  ardent  ideas 
and  high  attitudes  of  mind  which  move  the  nation  itself. 
.  .  .  I  do  not  think  either  of  us  saw  that,  as  belief  in  the 
possibility  of  armed  insurrection  withered,  the  old  romantic 
nationalism  would  wither  too,  and  that  the  young  would 
become  less  ready  to  find  pleasure  in  whatever  they  believed 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  71 


Patrick  Pearse  was  born  in  1878;  his  father 
was  of  English  origin,  his  mother  an  Irish- 
woman. Brought  up  in  Ireland,  he  came  quite 
early  under  the  influence  of  the  Gaelic  re- 
vival. No  sooner  had  he  learned  the  language 
than  he  began  to  employ  it  as  a  literary 
medium.  Some  of  his  early  books  were  not, 
however,  free  from  the  faults  due  to  a  failure  to 
distinguish  between  the  aptitude  of  two  languages 
as  different  in  their  genius  as  English  and  Irish. 
Later  on,  he  acquired — as  one  of  his  friends,  him- 
self a  student  of  many  tongues,  says — such  mastery 
over  his  acquired  Gaelic  that  "  the  racy  older 
native  speakers  might  be  heard  rejoicing  over  the 
rich  new  combinations  he  would  suddenly  fling 
out  in  a  speech  as  his  passion  caught  fire  from  an 
idea. 5 5  His  last  work,  a  little  book  of  twelve  Irish 
poems,  was  his  best.  "  It  is  the  mature  birth  of 
an  intense  mind  brooding  overmuch  on  life,"  says 
the  same  critic,  "  but  especially  over  Ireland,  a 
little  book,  of  only  twelve  poems;  but,  I  veritably 

to  be  literature."  Certain  hastily-informed  persons  (we 
may  add  here)  have  sought  to  connect  the  Anglo-Irish  literary 
movement  with  the  impulse  of  rebellion.  In  fact  the  leaders 
of  that  movement  had  in  recent  years  detached  themselves 
altogether  from  the  Nationalist  agitation,  the  utilitarian 
character  of  which  Mr.  Yeats  was  fond  of  deploring,  as  in 
his  famous  verses:  — 

Was  it  for  this  the  wild  geese  spread 
Their  grey  wings  over  every  tide, 
For  this  that  all  that  blood  was  shed, 
For  this  Edward  Fitzgerald  died, 
And  Robert  Emmet  and  Wolfe  Tone  ? 
All  that  delirium  of  the  brave. 
Romantic  Ireland's  dead  and  gone, 
It's  with  O'Leary  in  the  grave. 

The  Gaelic  Revival,  however,  to  which  most  of  the 
leaders  of  16  contributed,  kept  alive  the  thought  of  an  in- 
dependent Ireland,  and  with  the  outbreak  of  war  over  the 
world,  the  belief  in  violence  had  a  new  lease  of  life. 


72     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


think,  every  one  of  the  twelve,  each  in  its  kind  of 
classic  quality."  As  an  orator,  he  did  not  dis- 
dain the  use  of  English,  and,  with  his  passion  of 
romantic  Nationalism,  could  sway  a  certain  type 
of  audience  which  way  he  would,  though  there 
were  not  wanting  critics  who  found  his  platform 
style  and  method  too  deliberate  and  too  ' '  liter- 
ary." It  is  generally  believed  that  the  famous 
Republican  proclamation  of  Easter  Monday  was 
the  composition  of  his  pen. 

Pearse  had  adopted  the  profession  of  a  barrister, 
but  he  did  not  practise,  preferring  to  devote  him- 
self to  the  academical  experiment  of  an  Irish- 
speaking  school.  The  home  of  this  experiment 
was  St.  Enda's,  a  fine  old  house  and  park  at  Rath- 
farnham,  near  Dublin.  "  St.  Enda's,"  wrote 
Pearse's  political  opponent,  but  his  friend,  Mr. 
Shane  Leslie,  "  began  as  a  pastoral  idyll  and 
finished  as  a  fiery  epic  under  the  burning  ruins  of 
the  Dublin  Post  Office."  The  school,  subsidised 
by  Gaelic  enthusiasts,  was  not  conducted  on 
business  lines,  and  was  often  on  the  verge  of  a 
more  commonplace  disaster,  being  only  saved  by 
the  devotion  which  Pearse  inspired  amongst  his 
colleagues  of  the  enterprise.  He  had,  we  are 
told,  a  "  dark  "  side.  He  was  a  man  of  brood- 
ing imagination,  with  a  strong  introspective  ten- 
dency; and  it  seems  that  the  idea  that  the  Irish 
cause  demanded  a  blood  sacrifice  haunted  him  in 
later  years.  One  might  compare  and  contrast 
him  with  the  stern  Fenian  moralist,  John  O'Leary, 
no  fanatic  certainly,  who  also  joined,  without 
hope  of  success,  in  a  revolutionary  movement.  "  If 
you  never  ask  me  to  enrol  anyone  else,"  O'Leary 
said  to  his  Fenian  friends,  "  I  will  join,  it  will  be 
very  good  for  the  morals  of  the  country."  Pearse 
was  ready  to  assume  greater  responsibilities. 
"  Six  years  ago,"  writes  Mr.  Leslie,  "  he  told  me 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  73 


that  he  one  day  intended  to  lead  the  St.  Enda 
boys  into  rebellion.  'r 

He  took  an  enthusiastic  part  in  the  foundation 
of  the  Volunteers  in  1913.  and  was  a  signatory  u 
the  report  of  the  Committee  repudiating  Mr. 
Redmond's  authority  in  the  autumn  of  1914.  It 
was  in  the  autumn  of  1914  that  he  came  into  con- 
flict with  Dr.  Mahafry,  another,  but  a  more  ortho- 
dox, educationalist — an  incident  which  very  likely 
gave  rise  to  the  story  told  at  the  time  of  the 
Rebellion,  that  Pearse  intended,  in  the  event  of 
success.,  to  replace  Dr.  Mahafry  in  the  position  of 
Provost  of  Trinity  College.  The  Gaelic  Society 
of  Trinity  College  proposed  to  celebrate  the  cen- 
tenary of  the  birth  of  Thoma-s  Davis,  the  Young 
Ireland  poet,  and  to  that  end  invited  Mr.  Pearse. 
Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats  and  the  late  Lieu:.  Kettle,  as  re- 
presenting the  various  currents  of  Irish  intellec- 
tual life,  to  address  them.  Dr.  Mahafiy.  on  hear- 
ing of  the  matter,  threatened  to  condemn  the 
society  for  inviting  '"that  man  Pearse"  to  the 
College.  It  was  said  afterwards  that  the  Society, 
having  been  reduced  by  various  circumstances  to  a 
membership  of  one.  wished  to  be  suppressed; 
nevertheless.  Dr.  Mahafy's  ;.:;?<   was  re- 

spected and  the  meeting  in  honour  of  Davis  had 
to  be  held,  under  other  auspices  than  that  of  the 
Gaelic  Society.*  in  the  Antient  Concert  Rooms. 

Pearse' s  best  book  (the  volume  of  original  Irish 

*  The  meeting  in  the  Antient  Concert  Booms  becomes 
rather  memorable  in  the  light  of  after  even:?  ^Ir.  Yeats, 
Lieut.  Kettle  and  Mr.  Pearse  were  all  present.  "They  should 
never  object/'  said  Mr.  Yeats,  "  to  listen  to  a  scholar  on 
his  own  subject.  tV-h  thturh  thej  grestlj  :b;e2te-i  to  hi? 
roi:t::=.  He  kne—  ozlj  vsrurl-  —hat  Vr.  Pearse  had 
wfilieii  about  politics,  but  if  it  was  some  sort  of  anti- 
Englishism  he  was  as  vehemently  opposed  to  the  politics 
of  Mr.  Pearse  as  to  the  Unionism  of  Dr.  Mahaffy;  but  he 
would  like  to  hear  Mr.  Pearse  on  Davis." 


74     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


poems)  was  published  in  1914,  with  the  title, 
Suantraidhe  agus  Goltraidhe  (Songs  of  Sleep  and 
Sorrow).  Even  in  the  English  translations  many 
of  the  poems  have  great  charm.  There  is  one  of 
them  which  is  certain  to  be  remembered  for  its 
prophetic  quality.  It  is  entitled  "Ideal;" 
Thomas  MacDonagh  in  his  book  "  Literature  in 
Ireland"  renders  it  as  follows: — 

Naked  I  saw  thee, 

0  beauty  of  beauty! 
And  I  blinded  my  eyes 
For  fear  I  should  flinch. 

1  heard  thy  music, 

0  melody  of  melody! 
And  I  shut  my  ears 
For  fear  I  should  fail. 

1  kissed  thy  lips, 

0  sweetness  of  sweetness! 
And  I  hardened  my  heart 
For  fear  of  my  ruin. 

1  blinded  my  eyes, 
And  my  ears  I  shut, 
I  hardened  my  heart, 
And  my  love  I  quenched. 

I  turned  my  back 
On  the  dream  I  had  shaped, 
And  to  this  road  before  me 
My  face  I  turned. 

I  set  my  face 

To  the  road  here  before  me, 

To  the  work  that  I  see, 

To  the  death  that  I  shall  get. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  75 


Yet  another  of  the  poems  expresses  preoccupa- 
tion with  the  thought  of  death: 

Long  to  me  your  coming, 
Old  herald  of  God, 
0  friend  of  friends, 
To  put  me  from  my  pain! 

The  editors  of  the  various  Gaelic  and  semi- 
Gaelic  reviews  of  Dublin  had  in  Pearse  a  valued 
contributor.  He  had  planned  an  Anthology  of 
;*  all  that  had  been  most  nobly  said  in  verse  by 
Irish-speaking  men  and  women  from  the  begin- 
ning to  our  own  time,"  and  many  chapters  of  the 
suggested  work  appeared  in  the  Irish  Review. 
He  also  edited  a  little  paper  of  his  own,  An 
Macaomk,  at  St.  Enda's  for  the  discussion  of 
educational  ideals.  Pearse,  naturally,  believed 
in  a  Nationalist  upbringing  for  Irish  children; 
he  wanted  to  inspire  his  pupils  with  the  deeds  of 
Ireland's  heroes  from  Cuchulain  to  Emmet.  Also 
he  wanted  to  harden  the  character  and  encourage 
out-of-door  life.  But  discipline,  whether  in  the 
aristocratic  English  or  the  militarist  German 
sense,  he  seems  to  have  rejected.  "  Teachers  and 
pupils,  each  school  a  little  self-governing  commu- 
nity, should  be  free  to  plan  their  own  schemes  of 
work  and  play,  the  function  of  the  central  educa- 
tional authority  being  merely  to  suggest,  to  help, 
and,  as  far  as  need  be,  to  co-ordinate."  * 

Pearse' s  aims  in  education  were  set  forth  in  a 
short  paper  which  he  contributed  to  one  of  the 
last  numbers  of  the  Irish  Review.  "  A  school  in 
fact,"  he  wrote,  "  according  to  the  conception  of 
our  wise  ancestors,  was  less  a  place  than  a 
person:  a  teacher  with  a  little  group  of  pupils 
clustering  around  him.  Its  place  might  be  poor, 
uay,  it  might  have  no  local  habitation  at  all. 
*  Irish  Review,  March,  1911. 


76     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


it  might  be  peripatetic — where  the  Master  went, 
the  disciples  followed.  One  may  think  of  our 
Lord  and  His  friends,  as  a  sort  of  school;  was  He 
not  the  Master,  and  were  not  they  the  disciples? 
That  gracious  conception  was  not  only  the  con- 
ception of  the  old  Gael,  Pagan  and  Christian,  but 
it  was  the  conception  of  Europe  all  through  the 
Middle  Ages.  .  .  .  The  modern  child  is  coming 
to  regard  his  teacher  as  an  official  paid  by  the 
State  to  render  him  certain  services ;  services  which 
it  is  his  interest  to  avail  himself  of,  since,  by  so 
doing,  he  will  increase  his  earning  capacity  later 
on;  but  services  the  rendering  and  acceptance  of 
which  no  more  imply  a  sacred  relationship  than 
do  the  rendering  and  accepting  of  the  services  of 
a  dentist  and  chiropodist.  .  .  .  Against  this  trend 
I  would  oppose  the  ideal  of  those  who  shaped  the 
Gaelic  polity  nearly  two  thousand  years  ago.  .  . 
The  old  Irish  system,  Pagan  and  Christian, 
possessed  in  pre-eminent  degree  the  thing  most 
needful  in  education;  an  adequate  inspiration. 
Columcille  suggested  what  that  inspiration  was 
when  he  said : — '  If  I  die  it  shall  be  from  the  ex- 
cess of  love  that  I  bear  the  Gael.'  A  love  and  a 
service  so  excessive  as  to  annihilate  all  thought  of 
self,  a  recognition  that  one  must  give  all,  must 
be  willing  always  to  make  the  ultimate  sacrifice — 
this  is  the  inspiration  alike  of  the  story  of 
Cuchulain  and  of  the  story  of  Columcille,  the  in- 
spiration that  made  the  one  a  hero  and  the  other 
a  saint." 

Eoin  (John)  MacNeill,  who  took  no  part  in 
the  actual  Rebellion,  was  sentenced  by  Court- 
martial  to  penal  servitude  for  life.  He  had  been 
President  of  the  Volunteer  organisation  ;  and  it 
was  by  his  name  that  the  order  forbidding  the 
Easter  parades  and  manoeuvres  was  signed.  Th^ 
exact  significance  of  that  order  is  discussed  in  a 
later  chapter.    It  is  known  for  certain  that  at 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  77 


the  Volunteer  Committee  meeting  of  Saturday  and 
Sunday,  April  22nd  and  23rd,  MacNeill  exerted 
all  his  influence  against  the  project  of  a  rising  on 
the  following  Monday.  In  the  Bulletin  issued  bv 
Pearse  on  April  28th,  when  he  began  to  realise 
the  hopelessness  of  his  position,  we  find  the 
following  allusion  to  MacNeilFs  opposition:— 
*'  I  am  satisfied  that  we  have  saved  Ireland's 
honour.  I  am  satisfied  that  we  should  have 
accomplished  more,  that  we  should  have  accom- 
plished the  task  of  enthroning  as  well  as  proclaim- 
ing the  Irish  Republic  as  a  Sovereign  State,  had 
our  arrangements  for  a  simultaneous  rising  of  the 
whole  country,  with  a  combined  plan  as  sound  as 
the  Dublin  plan  has  proved  to  be,  been  allowed  to 
go  through  on  Easter  Sunday.  Of  the  fatal 
countermanding  order  which  prevented  those  plans 
from  being  carried  out,  I  shall  not  speak  further. 
Both  Eoin  MacNeill  and  we  have  acted  in  the  best 
interests  of  Ireland."  * 

Certainly  MacNeill  had  never  been  ranked  among 
the  revolutionists.  When  he  took  charge  of  the 
Volunteer  movement,  he  was  a  man  of  about  fifty 
who  had  hitherto  led  a  life  of  comparative  retire- 
ment. In  opinion  always  an  advanced  Nationalist, 
keenly  interested  in  the  struggle  for  Home  Rule, 
he  had  believed,  or  professed  to  believe,  up  to  the 
date  of  the  foundation  of  the  Volunteers,  in  the 
efficacy  of  constitutional  action.    He  looked  for- 

*  "  MacNeill  regarded  the  possession  of  arms  by  Irishmen 
as  a  national  safeguard.  He  contended  .  .  .  that  when 
the  war  was  concluded  a  body  of  Volunteers  intact  would 
represent  a  counterblast  to  the  statesmanship  which  con- 
nived at  an  armed  Ulster,  and  would  secure  the  country  from 
being  cheated.  P.  H.  Pearse,  on  the  other  hand,  regarded 
the  possession  of  arms  by  Irishmen  as  a  means  of  making  a 
protest  in  blood.  He  considered  that  a  nation  which  de- 
mands independence  as  its  right  must  make  a  protest  in 
blood    .    .  Mr.  A.  Newman,  in  the  Irishman,  Septem- 

ber 16,  1916. 


78     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


ward  to  an  Ireland  in  the  enjoyment  of  complete 
legislative  independence,  an  Ireland,  too,  that 
should  be  Irish  in  culture;  and  even  those  who 
called  these  ideals  impracticable  found  in  MacNeill 
a  man  with  whom  discussion  was  possible.  He  had 
not,  that  is  to  say,  the  touch  of  fanaticism  in  his 
nature.  He  had  faith  in  persuasion  and  argu- 
ment, and  he  brought  even  into  propaganda  some- 
thing of  that  keen  critical  faculty  and  dislike  of 
exaggeration  which  distinguished  him  from  many 
"  patriotic  "  writers.  He  left  the  North  of  Ire- 
land as  a  young  man  and  came  to  Dublin,  where 
he  obtained  a  good  position  in  the  Law  Courts.  His 
Irish  studies  had  already  commenced  and  he  was 
a  valuable  member  of  the  little  Gaelic  Union  over 
which  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde  presided.  In  1893  he 
was  a  comrade  of  Dr.  Douglas  Hyde,  David 
Comyn,  Father  O'Growney,  and  O'Neill  Russell  in 
the  foundation  of  the  Gaelic  League,  which  had  for 
its  objects  the  preservation  of  Irish  as  a  National 
language,  the  extension  of  its  use  as  a  spoken 
language,  the  study  of  the  old  Irish  literature, 
and  the  cultivation  of  a  modern  literature. 
MacNeill  presently  became  Vice-President  of  the 
League.  In  1908  he  left  the  Law  Courts  and 
obtained  the  professorship  of  Old  and  Mediaeval 
Irish  History  in  the  National  University.  He  was 
a  great  worker,  and  his  "output"  of  articles 
on  linguistic  and  historical  subjects  seems  to  have 
been  scarcely  affected  by  his  association  with 
Gaelic  League  work  and  propaganda,  or,  later, 
by  his  leadership  of  the  Volunteers. 

Between  1892  and  1902  he  contributed  to  and 
edited  the  Gaelic  Journal.  He  worked  also  for 
the  Ulster  Journal  of  Archaeology,  for  Eriu,  and 
for  the  Zeitschrift  fur  Keltische  Philologie.  His 
subjects  were  usually  remote  and  difficult  points 
of  Celtic  philology.  In  1907  he  became  a  member 
of  the  Royal  Irish  Academy;  but  his  name  was 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  79 


expunged  from  the  rolls  after  the  result  of  the 
trial  by  court-martial.  (It  is  interesting  to  ob- 
serve that  this  learned  body  took  no  action  in  the 
case  of  Dr.  Kuno  Meyer,  the  German-Irish 
scholar  who  conducted  an  anti-British  propaganda 
in  the  States  during  the  war.)  Mr.  MacNeill 
contributed  to  the  proceedings  of  the  Academy 
several  important  treatises: — "  On  the  Distribu- 
tion, History,  Grammar  and  Import  of  the  Irish 
Ogham  Inscriptions;"  "An  Irish  Historical 
Tract,"  "  Early  Irish  Population  Groups," 
"  Clare  Island  Survey — Place  Names  and  Family 
Names."  He  published  more  recently  a  critical 
edition  of  the  "  Poems  of  Flavin  Mainstrech," 
and  a  study  of  the  Scottish  historian,  George 
Buchanan  (1582),  and  he  collaborated  with  Pro- 
fessor R.  Macalister  in  a  new  edition  of  the  '  'Lebor 
Gabala,"  or  "  Book  of  Invasions."  A  publication 
of  his,  "  Chapters  of  Hebridean  History,  Part  I. : 
The  Norse  Kingdom  of  the  Hebrides,"  appeared 
after  his  imprisonment  in  the  Scottish  Revieiv. 
He  had  maintained  amid  terrible  responsibilities 
his  studies  to  the  end. 

If  he  was  not  a  scholar  of  genius,  he  was 
a  leading  Celtologist  who  could  consort  on 
equal  terms  with  men  like  Dr.  Meyer  and 
Dr.  Bergin;  and  there  were  some  fields  of 
Irish  learning  which  he  had  explored  more 
thoroughly  than  any  of  his  contemporaries.  "  It 
is  essential,"  he  once  wrote,  "  that  students  of 
Irish  history  should  know  where  the  ground  is 
sure  and  where  it  is  untrustworthy.  National 
pride  instinctively  seeks  to  carry  history  as  far 
back  as  possible,  yet  to  take  doubtful  things  for 
facts  is  a  poor  thing  to  be  proud  of.  For  the  study 
of  our  own  history  let  us  pride  ourselves  on 
accurate  knowledge  before  all  things  else." 

His  action,  or  rather  his  inaction,  during  the 
events  of  Easter  week  is  likely  to  remain  for  a 


80     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


long  while  a  topic  of  discussion.  This  action  is 
contrasted  with  that  of  The  O'Rahilly,  who 
agreed  with  him  in  opposing  the  Rebellion,  but 
once  the  fire  had  been  started,  took  his  chances 
with  the  others.  But  MacNeill's  position  was 
different  in  that  as  leader  of  the  Volunteer  move- 
ment he  had  a  responsibility  for  the  young  life 
of  the  rank  and  file.  "If  it  had  not  been  for  the 
action  of  Mr.  John  MacNeill,"  said  Mr.  Dillon 
in  the  House  of  Commons  on  May  11th,  "you 
would  be  fighting  still,  and  the  Rebellion  would 
have  been  twice  as  formidable.  .  .  .  He  broke  the 
back  of  the  Rebellion  on  the  very  eve  of  it,  and 
he  kept  back  a  very  large  body  of  men  from  join- 
ing." Having  gone  so  far  in  opposition  to  the 
plans  of  Pearse  and  Connolly,  his  personal  pre- 
sence at  the  Post  Office  in  Easter  week  became 
unthinkable.  We  should  remember,  too,  that 
MacNeill  in  his  writings  in  the  Irish  Volunteer, 
even  in  the  coldly  violent  speech  which  he  delivered 
at  the  Mansion  House  protest  meeting  against 
deportations,  described  the  aims  of  his  followers 
and  himself  as  defensive — they  would  fight  only 
if  attacked.  But  nothing  is  more  delicate  than 
the  distinction  between  "offence"  and  "de- 
fence/5 For  instance,  if  MacNeill  promoted 
the  Casement  escapade,  or  indeed  had  cognizance 
of  it — even  supposing,  for  argument's  sake,  that 
Casement's  purpose  was  merely  to  supply  the 
Volunteers  with  arms,  not  to  start  a  rebellion — 
then  he  was  associated  with  an  act  of  policy  which 
(as  he  must  have  known)  would,  if  discovered, 
force  the  Government's  hand,  oblige  the  Govern- 
ment, however  unwillingly,  to  "  attack."  On 
the  other  hand,  to  many  of  his  colleagues  the 
deportations  were  an  aggressive  act — perhaps  to 
MacNeill  himself,  who  spoke  at  the  Mansion 
House  meeting  of  "  choosing  our  own  time," 
"  refusing  to  be  rushed,"  etc.    The  gist  of  the 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  81 


matter  lies  here:  Mr.  MacNeill,  if  he  proposed  to 
maintain  in  Ireland  during  the  war  an  armed 
force,  hostile  to,  or  independent  of,  British  war 
objects,  without  attacking  or  being  attacked  by 
the  Government,  sought  to  achieve  the  impossible. 
Inevitably  there  must  have  been  ' '  cause  shewn 
(from  the  Volunteers'  point  of  view)  for  rebellion, 
as  (from  the  Government's  point  of  view)  for  sup- 
pression. 

Roger  Casement  was  born  in  1864  in  the  North 
of  Ireland.  He  belonged  to  an  Irish  landlord 
family,  French  by  extraction,  and  was  nurtured  in 
•the  old  atmosphere  of  Protestant  ascendency.  Of 
his  youth  very  little  has  been  made  known;  nor, 
curiously  enough,  is  there  any  account  extant  of 
the  influences  that  turned  him  into  so  ardent  a 
champion  of  the  Irish  National  idea.  His  tem- 
perament must,  however,  always  have  been  in 
collision  with  the  orthodoxies  of  his  Orange 
surroundings ;  it  does  not  follow  that,  when  first  he 
entered  the  British  Consular  Service,  he  was  a 
Separatist  by  conviction,  or  a  rebel  against  English 
rule.  In  embracing  a  career  abroad  he  followed 
the  example  of  almost  all  the  more  ambitious  or 
adventurous  young  men  of  his  class  in  Ireland. 
He  was  with  Stanley  in  Africa.  At  the  age  of  28 
he  worked  in  the  Niger  Coast  Protectorate;  three 
years  later  he  became  British  Consul  in  the 
Portuguese  province  of  Lorenzo  Marques.  In 
1898  he  was  appointed  Consul  to  the  Portuguese 
possessions  in  West  Africa,  and,  during  the  South 
African  War  (Consul  at  Delagoa  Bay)  he  did 
special  service  work  in  Cape  Town,  receiving 
at  the  conclusion  of  hostilities  a  British  South 
African  medal.  Subsequently,  he  served  in 
the  French  Congo.  He  penetrated  into  the 
Belgian  Congo  and  associated  himself  with 
the  agitation  against  the  atrocities  upon  the 
natives  in  that  country;  in  June  1905  he  became 


F 


82     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Consul  to  the  State  of  San  Paulo.  He  was  pro- 
moted Consul-General  and  transferred  to  Rio  de 
Janeiro  in  1908;  in  1911  he  was  knighted  and  re- 
ceived the  Coronation  medal.  He  had  already 
been  engaged  for  some  years  in  investigating  the 
conditions  of  the  rubber  industry  in  the  Amazon 
Valley,  the  report  on  which  he  sent  to  Sir  Edward 
Grey  in  January  1911.  It  showed  that  for  the 
twelve  years,  1900  to  1911,  the  Putumayo  output 
of  4,000  tons  of  rubber  cost  30,000  lives,  and  that 
the  only  reason  in  some  cases  why  crops  failed 
later  was  because  of  the  shortage  of  labour  caused 
by  the  brutalities;  the  enterprise  was  conducted 
from  headquarters  in  London  and  employed  both 
British  capital  and  British  labour — "under 
British  auspices,"  said  Casement  in  his  Report, 
though,  of  course,  the  primary  responsibility  lay 
with  the  Peruvian  Government  which  had  given 
free  play  to  the  rubber  merchants. 

His  connection  with  active  Irish  propaganda 
dated  from  1900  or  thereabouts,  when  first  he 
raised  his  voice  in  favour  of  the  new  cultural  ideas 
of  the  Gaelic  League.  After  that  date  he  always 
spent  his  leave  in  Ireland,  forming  many  friend- 
ships among  the  literary  Nationalists.  He  made 
no  secret  of  the  fact  that  his  Irish  political  opinions 
were  most  "  advanced;"  he  believed  that  Ireland 
was  in  the  fullest  sense  a  nation,  and,  as  such, 
entitled,  if  she  so  desired,  to  complete  separation 
from  England.  Also,  he  had  a  characteristic 
aversion  from  the  Parliamentary  manoeuvres  to 
which  the  Constitutional  movement  had  been  re- 
duced. That  is  not  to  say  that  he  belonged  to 
the  small  group  of  extremists  which  would  have 
rejected  with  scorn  even  a  full  measure  of  Home 
Rule;  nor  did  his  view  of  the  situation  commit 
him  in  any  way  to  revolutionary  propaganda. 
His  position  was  really  that  of  the  original  Sinn 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  83 


Feiners.  Imperialism  never  caught  his  fancy; 
nor  did  he  regard  Ireland  as  the  one  failure  of 
British  history.  Whether  he  ought  not  in  these 
circumstances  to  have  withdrawn  from  the  Con- 
sular service  is  a  nice  point  for  the  moralist. 
Casement  may  have  argued  that  his  work  for  the 
natives  was  still  undone;  that  he  could  not  com- 
plete it  in  his  private  capacity ;  that  whatever  of 
sedition  there  might  be  in  his  Irish  politics  he 
aid  still  fulfil  his  duties  of  Consul  with  loyalty. 
There  may  also  have  been  in  his  mind  the  thought 
that  the  more  notable  his  achievement  abroad 
the  more  weight  his  views  in  Ireland  would 
carry  both  among  his  compatriots  and  among 
foreigners. 

It  was  in  1911,  apparently,  that  he  first  began 
to  think  of  the  "  next  war/''  and  of  how  Ireland 
might  exploit  it.  That  same  year  he  received  his 
knighthood,  an  event  which  caused  him  some 
scruples  of  conscience — his  courtier-like  letter  of 
acceptance  notwithstanding.  (It  appears  that 
he  never  even  opened  the  parcel  which  contained 
the  insignia  of  his  orders.)  He  was  now  very  often 
in  Ireland,  though  he  did  not  actually  retire  from 
the  Consular  service  until  1913.  Among  the 
friendships  he  made  was  one  with  Dr.  Kuno 
Meyer,  the  great  Celtic  scholar,  who  made  so  sur- 
prising an  appearance  a  few  years  later  in  the 
role  of  a  German-Irish  aeitator  in  the  States. 
Dr.  Meyer,  in  spite  of  his  liking  for  Irish  life  and 
his  devotion  to  the  old  Irish  past,  had  looked  with 
rather  a  scornful  eye  on  the  Nationalist  agitations 
of  the  day.  It  appears,  however,  that  Casement 
created  a  deep  impression  on  the  German  doctor; 
and  it  was  on  Casement's  suggestion,  we  may 
guess,  that  Dr.  Kuno  Meyer  (with  Dr.  Schie- 
mann.  a  scholar  much  in  the  Kaiser's  confidence) 
published  a  letter  informing  the  Covenanters  of 


84     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Belfast  that  they  need  count  on  no  German  sym- 
pathy. It  was  not  Germany's  way,  said  Dr. 
Meyer,  to  interfere  in  the  domestic  concerns  of 
another  people;  but  on  general  grounds  Ger- 
many— Dr.  Meyer  spoke  for  the  "intellectuals  "— 
would  repudiate  the  whole  philosophy  of 
Carsonism.  In  1912  there  was  published  anony- 
mously, but  almost  certainly  from  Casement's  pen, 
in  the  Irish  Review  the  article  which  we  quote  at 
length  in  our  first  chapter,  setting  out  the  idea 
that  one  result  of  the  ' '  next  war  ' '  should  be  the 
constitution  of  Ireland  as  an  independent  nation 
under  the  guarantee  of  the  European  Powers  and 
the  States  of  America.  One  may  compare  his 
idea  with  schemes  for  Poland  advocated  in  Eng- 
land during  the  war  by  German  Poles.  The 
article  created  some  interest  in  Germany,  though 
not  in  official  circles,  which  at  the  time  aimed  at 
procuring  English  neutrality  in  the  event  of  a 
European  conflagration.  The  question  of  the 
Queenstown  Harbour  call*  in  the  same  year 
showed  clearly  how  little  of  actuality  yet  resided 
in  Casement's  scheme — if  scheme  it  could  be 
called:  suggestions  rather.  Casement's  "double" 
in  Irish  history  is  surely  that  " Walter"  who  was 
Secretary  of  Frederic  of  Hohenstaufen,  and  ever 
spoke  to  his  Imperial  Master  of  that  wonderful 
island  far  off  that  was  all  "  great  shadowy  rocks 
and  silent  strands,"  and  awaited  the  coming  of 
the  Deliverer.  This  Walter  went,  on  behalf  of  the 
German  (or  Holy  Roman)  Emperor,  to  revisit 
Ireland,  where  he  was  watched  by  the  orders  of 
the  English  King,  Henry  III.,  and  his  doings  and 
sayings  "privately  noted."  f 

*  See  Chapter  V. 

t  Casement,  like  most  of  the  leaders  of  '16,  had  consider- 
able literary  talent.  Of  his  published  poems  only  one  is 
"  political."  This  is  a  sonnet  that  appeared  in  "  Dana,"  an 
"  Irish  Magazine  of  independent    thought,"    1904.    "  To 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  55 


An  eye-witness  who  was  in  Ulster  at  the  time 
::  the  "Cnrragh  crisis''*  furnishes  the  following 
unpublished  reminiscences: — '"Roger  Casement, 
who  stayed  with  Mr.  E.  J.  Biggar,  the  well-known 
Irish  antiquary,  used  ro  be  in  and  out  of  the  Grand 
Central  Hotel  a  great  deal.  There  were  congre- 
together  journalists  of  all  nationalities, 
eager  tc  reach  an  -understanding  of  the  paradoxical 
situation  that  had  arisen  as  a  consequence  of  the 
Larue  gun-running.  Casement  confined  his 
attentions  chiefly  to  the  representatives  of  the 
Euglish  Liberal  newspapers — among  whom  Mr. 
H.  W  Xevinson  ::  the  Manchester  G^irdvin.  his 
friend  and  fellow-worker  among  the  African 
nr.u-:es.  stood  pre-eminent.  But  he  also  liked  to 
talk  to  the  quite  bewildered  correspondents  of  the 
Erench  and  German  Press  who  had  come  to  Ire- 
land expecting  to  find  Ulster  in  arms  against  the 
Empire,  and  now  saw  it  bestrewn  with  Union 
Jacks  in  honour  of  the  visit  of  Mr.  Churchill's 
gun-boat.  Casement  made  friends  especially  with 
the  very  able  representative  of  one  of  the  principal 
German  newspapers,  the  Berliner  Tageblat,  who 
had  come  post  haste  to  Ireland  to  report  the 
progress  of  the  *  Revolution/  This  gentle- 
man had  already  interviewed  the  principal 
Unionists  and  Nationalists  of  the  city:  ne  spoke  o: 

m  with  mockery  in  his  voice,  as  though  tne  situ- 
ation were  purely  opera  bouffe;  he  saw,  or  thought 

a  Lady  Who  W:uie:ed  why  all  Irish  Poetry  was  Rebel."  U 
the  title : — 

"  Who  could  commemorate  in  lasting  song, 
The  triumph  of  the  mighty  o'er  the  weak? 
Ncr  ccuid  :_r  reus  that  through  the  ages  seek 
TV  dress  the  zh.bz.2i:  ci  swcri-hanie  i  -yr:ng 
Forsake  the  vanquished  few  to  aid  the  string. 
In  this  eternal  :ause  no  voice  can  speak. 
Toe  Laughtv  victor  in  Laii-tmes  :r  meek. 
Nor  to  that  ::iast  blow  not  a  note  too  long." 


86     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


he  saw,  what  the  Unionists  were  at,  that  is,  pro- 
moting a  huge  'bluff'  in  the  hope  of  escaping  'Home 
Rule;'  though  why  anyone  should  make  so  much 
fuss  about  '  Home  Rule  '  (unlike  the  natives  he 
had  studied  the  Bill),  he  was  unable  to  conceive. 
Equally  the  Nationalists  had  failed  to  explain  to 
him  why  they  wanted  this  '  Home  Rule  '  so 
badly.  It  all  seemed  to  him  a  much  ado  about 
nothing;  both  parties  were  quite  un-serious, 
limited  and  sectarian  at  bottom.  Then  he  met 
Casement,  who  exposed  to  him  his  view  of  Ire- 
land's need  of  self-government.  It  was  at  a 
luncheon  party  in  the  Grand  Central  Hotel. 
Casement  argued  that  British  statesmen  had 
opposed,  and  would  continue  to  oppose,  the  indus- 
trial development  of  Ireland,  citing  among  many 
other  instances,  if  I  remember  rightly,  the  refusal 
of  the  Cunard  Steamship  Company  to  continue 
Queenstown  as  a  port  of  call.  Ulster,  he  said, 
had,  like  the  rest  of  Ireland,  suffered  from  the 
Union;  and  if  the  Protestant  population  of  the 
province  were  still  Unionists,  that  was  because 
their  religious  fears  had  been  exploited  by  un- 
scrupulous Imperialists  who  wanted  to  keep  Ire- 
land divided  for  all  time.  The  '  Home  Rule  ' 
that  would  give  Ireland  a  chance  of  free  develop- 
ment would,  of  course,  have  to  be  a  measure  much 
wider  in  scope  than  that  which  was  now  in  dispute. 
Nevertheless  Casement  expressed  a  hope  that  the 
Bill  before  Parliament  would  become  law,  and 
he  asserted  that  if  the  Liberal  Government  chose 
only  to  act  courageously,  the  native  opposition  of 
the  Ulster  minority  need  cause  no  real  anxieties. 
There  were  not  two  Irish  nations,  but  only  one; 
the  Ulsterman  was,  in  point  of  fact,  probably  more 
Celtic  than  the  Southern.' 

"  The  German  journalist  had,  naturally,  no 
means  of  knowing  how  far  Casement's  informa- 
tion corresponded  with  the  facts.     But  here  at 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  87 


least  was  an  Irishman  who  could  explain  what  he 
wanted,  and  give  the  motive  of  his  action.  This 
man,  he  said,  speaks  a  language  that  I  can  under- 
stand. Casement  did  not  include  Sir  Edward 
Carson  among  the  '  unscrupulous  Imperialists,' 
for  he  was  very  anxious  to  have  an  interview  with 
the  Ulster  leader,  then  at  Craigavon,  Captain 
Craig's  place  near  Belfast,  which  had  been  turned 
into  a  Volunteer  camp,  and  was  guarded  by  armed 
sentries.  I  do  not  think  that  Casement  and  Sir 
Edward  met ;  the  German  journalist  was,  however, 
allowed,  as  a  special  privilege,  to  pass  through  the 
gates  of  Craigavon.  He  returned,  laughing,  to 
his  hotel.  Asked  by  the  representatives  of  the 
English  Liberal  Press  (to  whom  passage  into 
Craigavon  was  denied)  what  news  he  brought 
back,  '  Only  this,'  he  said,  '  Carson  and  Craig  will 
not  fight.'  Then  he  sat  down  to  compose  a 
humorous  article  about  Ulster;  we  thought  his 
hilarity  bad  taste,  seeing  that  he  had  been  so 
courteously  received  by  Captain  Craig  and  Sir 
Edward  Carson.  It  is  worth  while  to  recall  the 
incident;  only  the  other  day  I  read  in  the  Morn- 
ing Post  an  appreciation  of  Sir  Edward  by  a 
too  fervent  admirer,  which  suggested  that  the 
Ulster  leader  had,  during  this  critical  period  of 
international  politics,  taken  upon  himself  the 
responsibility  of  deceiving  German  journalists  as 
to  the  real  state  of  things  in  Ireland.  It  was 
alleged  that  they  left  his  presence  fully  convinced 
that  when  '  the  day  '  came  Ulster  would  rise  and 
stab  England  in  the  back.  This  German  at  least 
had  no  such  illusion.*     Someone  spoke  during 

*  According  to  Miss  Alice  Milligan,  the  Irish  poetess, 
there  is  a  folk  tradition  in  the  North  of  Ireland, 
which  says  that  the  whole  Ulster  business  was  a 
put-up  job  between  Sir  Edward  Carson  and  Mr. 
Winston  Churchill.  The  object  was  to  fool  the  Germans. 
They  knew   that  Germany  contemplated    an   attack  on 


88     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


luncheon  time  of  the  alleged  pro-German  sympa- 
thies of  the  Ulster  Orangemen  and  their  desire 
to  welcome  '  another  William  5  as  a  saviour  of  the 
Irish  Protestants.  The  journalist,  who  repre- 
sented a  non-militarist  and  Radical  paper, 
laughed  and  said  that  the  Kaiser  had  already 
'  enough  Irelands  '  on  hand.  In  effect,  I  do  not 
believe  that,  even  in  cases  where  the  wish  might 
have  been  father  to  the  thought,  German  en- 
quirers into  the  Ulster  situation  can  have  believed 
that  Ulster  would  rebel  on  the  declaration  of  war 
between  England  and  Germany. 

"  This  is  to  digress  from  Casement,  who,  having 
completed  his  eloquent  description  of  the  Irish 
claim,  strode  out  of  the  coffee  room,  his  back  held 
very  straight,  and  looking  as  though  there  were 
— to  adapt  Eckerman's  phrase  about  Wellington's 
Highlanders — no  Original  Sin  in  the  world,  or 
Fall  of  Man.  I  had  met  him  only  once  before;  it 
was  at  Bally  money,  Co.  Antrim,  at  a  meeting  of 
Ulster  Liberals.  Almost  all  the  speakers  were 
Protestant  '  intellectuals  '  of  the  Nationalist 
movement;  the  list  included  Casement,  Captain 
White,  D.S.O.  (of  Liberty  Hall  fame);  Mrs.  J. 
R.  Green,  the  historian,  Casement's  dear  friend; 
and  Mr.  Alec  Wilson  of  Belfast.  The  little  hall 
was  comfortably  filled  with  grizzled  farmers  who 
seriously  applauded  every  point  made  by  the 
speakers.  Casement  made  a  good  literary  speech, 
in  which  he  urged  upon  his  audience  the  necessity 
of  Irish  unity.  He  appeared  tired  and  ill,  how- 
ever, and  I  remember  that  he  sat  afterwards 
resting  his  head  on  his  hands,  and  quite  silently, 

Europe,  bub  she  would  wait  until  Ulster  was  "  ready." 
Ulster,  Sir  Edward  Carson  and  Mr.  Churchill  had  decided, 
would  never  be  "  ready."  Therefore,  European  peace  would 
have  been  preserved  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  silly  National- 
ists who  fought  the  police  at  Dollymount.  A  German  waiter, 
who  mistook  Dollymount  for  Dollysbrae,  telegraphed  to  the 
Kaiser  that  civil  war  had  begun. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  89 


before  the  fire  in  his  hotel.  He  had  a  touch  of  the 
chronic  ailment  he  had  contracted  in  the  tropics." 

Thomas  J.  Clarke,  with  Thomas  MacDonagh 
and  Pearse,  was  in  the  first  batch  of  the  executed 
leaders.  He  revived  associations  with  the  neo- 
Fenianism  of  the  late  seventies  and  early  eighties. 
As  a  youth  he  had  been  sentenced  to  fifteen  years 
penal  servitude,  which  he  served,  in  connexion 
with  the  dynamite  outrages.  He  was  now  still 
under  sixty.  Coming  out  of  prison  he  resumed  his 
membership  of  the  secret  society  known  as  the 
Irish  Republican  Brotherhood,  the  very  existence 
of  which  most  people  had  forgotten  in  recent 
years.*  Though  a  mild  and  kindly  temperament 
in  private  life,  Clarke  retained  during  a  long 
period  of  quiescence  the  firm  conviction  that  one 
more  rebellion  must  take  place  in  Ireland.  He 
was  a  great  authority  on  Irish- American  matters, 
and  closely  in  the  confidence  of  the  Clan-na-Gael, 
which  was  no  doubt  informed  through  him  of  the 
progress  of  the  Volunteers  and  the  possibilities  of 
"  forcing  the  pace  '3  of  the  movement.  He  kept 
a  newsagency  and  tobacco  shop  at  the  top  of  the 
street  which  was  to  suffer  most  from  the  military 
operations  during  the  rising,  and  in  his  will  left 
three  thousand  pounds  to  the  dependants  of  the 
fallen  Volunteers. 

Thomas  MacDonagh  was  born  at  Cloughjordan 
in  Co.  Cavan  in  1878.  He  worked  as  a  tutor  in 
English  literature  and  Mathematics  at  University 
College,  Dublin,  and  was  a  colleague  of  Pearse  in 
many    educational    projects.     Though  always 

*  Accounts  have  been  published  from  time  to  time  pur- 
porting to  describe  the  present  constitution  and  methods  of 
this  Fenian  secret  society.  The  authors  have  preferred  to  re- 
ject this  very  doubtful  information,  and  to  admit  frankly  that 
little  or  nothing,  beyond  the  fact  of  its  existence,  is  authori- 
tatively known  about  the  Irish  Republican  Brotherhood. 
It  appears  to  have  been  languishing  when  the  Volunteer 
movement  revived  it. 


90     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


strongly  National  in  feeling,  he  was  not  among 
those  who  had  long  contemplated  the  resort  to 
arms,  and  his  influence,  even  while  the  issue  was 
being  knit  between  the  Volunteers  and  the  con- 
stituted authorities,  was  on  the  side  of  moderation. 
He  thought  it  madness  (these  words  were  reported 
as  his  to  the  Government  in  the  winter  of  1915- 
16)  to  fight  without  German  aid.  He  had  thrown 
himself,  however,  with  an  accustomed  heartiness 
into  the  profession  of  arms,  and  the  self-confidence 
that  is  reflected  in  his  writings  came  out  strongly 
in  his  association  with  the  Volunteers.  "  Now," 
he  said,  when  the  reservists  were  called  up  at  the 
commencement  of  the  war,  ''some  intelligence 
will  be  directed  upon  the  work.'5  He  read  mili- 
tary manuals  with  great  care,  and  talked  quite 
freely  to  casual  acquaintances  of  the  possibilities 
of  street  fighting.  In  fact,  he  was  one  of  the  most 
successful  of  the  Commandants  during  the  Rebel- 
lion, only  breaking  down  when  surrender  became 
inevitable.  His  alleged  last  speech  contains  a 
curious  passage  in  which  he  rejects  with  scorn  the 
claim  that  himself  and  his  comrades  represented 
the  people — that  "  inert  mass;"  an  utterance  to 
which  during  the  great  war  there  has  been  no 
parallel. 

His  friends  speak  of  the  cheerfulness,  indeed, 
the  exuberance,  of  his  spirits;  he  took  the  lead  in 
all  conversations,  and  would  talk,  they  say,  the 
very  chair  off  its  legs.  Ambitious  in  everything 
he  undertook,  he  put  great  energy  into  his  literary 
career.  Unlike  some  of  his  colleagues  of  the 
Gaelic  Revival,  he  showed  a  keen  interest  in  all 
movements  of  letters,  whether  in  England  or  on 
the  Continent,  and  opposed,  in  his  critical  work, 
that  obscurantist  tendency  which  is  often  the  bane 
of  local  patriotism.  He  was  a  poet,  he  would 
have  said  himself,  of  the  Irish  mode;  he  wrote  in 
English,  but  his  appeal,  both  in  subject-matter 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  91 


and  in  form,  was  to  an  Irish  audience;  in  his  last 
book,  Literature  in  Ireland,"  he  presented  an 
interesting  case  for  the  existence  of  a  separate 
Anglo-Irish  literature — i.e.,  a  literature  which  is 
other  than  a  variety  in  the  growth  of  English 
literature.  As  a  man  of  letters,  then,  MacDonagh 
claimed  to  be  in  the  company  of  Mr.  W.  B.  Yeats, 
Mr.  George  Russell,  Mr.  James  Stephens,  and  the 
late  J.  M.  Synge.  He  had  not  the  individual 
quality — the  real  need  for  self-expression — of  any 
of  these  writers ;  and  his  work  was  often  marred 
by  a  habit  of  grandiloquence.  But  when  he  died, 
many,  even  of  those  who  were  not  influenced  by 
the  manner  of  his  death,  found  that  he  had  been, 
on  occasion,  a  true  poet.  There  is  power  both  of 
thought  and  expression  in  the  concluding  stanzas 
of  "  Death  in  the  Woods  "  :— 

How  long!  Ah  Death,  what  art  thou,  a  thing  of 

calm  or  of  storms? 
Or  twain — their  peace  to  them,  to  me  thy  valiant 

alarms  ? 

Gladly  to  leave  them — this  corpse  in  their  church- 
yard to  lay  at  rest, 

If  my  wind-swept  spirit  could  fare  on  the  hurri- 
cane's kingly  quest. 

And  sure  'tis  the  fools  of  knowledge  who  feign  that 

the  winds  of  the  world 
Are  but  troubles  of  little  calm  in  the  greater  calm 

enf  urled ; 

I  know  them  from  symbols  of  glory,  and  echoes  of 

one  voice  dread, 
Sounding  where  spacious  tempests  house  the 

great-hearted  dead. 

His  translations  were  often  singularly  felicitous. 


92     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


The  "  Yellow  Bittern  "  in  his  last  book  is  a  de- 
lightful poem  which  illustrates  with  real 
ingenuity  the  unstressed  movements  and  the 
assonances  of  Gaelic  verse.  His  version  of  the 
song,  "  Taid  na  realta  'na  seasamh  ar  an  aer," 
will  also  be  remembered: — 

Three  things  through  love  I  see, 
Sorrow  and  Sin  and  Death — 

And  my  mind  reminding  me 

That  this  doom  I  breathe  with  my  breath. 

But  sweeter  than  violin  or  lute 

Is  my  love,  and  she  left  me  behind  ; 

I  wish  that  all  music  were  mute 
And  I  to  all  beauty  were  blind. * 

"It  is  impossible,"  observed  a  writer  in  the 
London  Nation  of  MacDonagh's  Literature  in 
Ireland,  "  not  to  be  influenced  by  the  knowledge 
that  the  writer  was  one  of  the  fifteen  Irishmen 
executed  for  proclaiming  an  Irish  Republic  on 
Easter  Monday.  One  knows,  too,  that  before  he 
died  he  declared  that  he  was  happy  to  die  for 
Ireland.  One  cannot  but  be  deeply  interested  in 
anything  that  will  throw  light  on  the  character 
of  a  man  of  letters  on  whom  so  tragic  a  doom  has 
fallen.    What  did  this  Ireland  that  he  died  for 

*  A  literal  version  of  this  beautiful  Gaelic  song  was  pub- 
lished by  P.  H.  Pearse  in  the  Irish  Review. 

Three  things  I  see  through  love, 
Sin,  and  death,  and  gain; 
And  my  mind  tells  me  day  by  day 
That  my  soul  she  has  wasted  with  care. 
My  sharp  grief  that  I  ever  gave  her  love, 
'Twere  better  that  I  never  had  seen  her, 
O  Maiden,  my  heart  you  have  hurt, 
May  you  get  forgiveness  from  God. 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  93 


mean  for  him  ?  Was  he  fired  by  the  ancient  love 
of  the  lost  Cause?  Was  he  victim  of  the  Celtic 
melancholy  or  the  Celtic  hope?  It  is  clear  from 
the  present  book  that  he  was  a  prophet  of  faith, 
not  of  madness.  He  insists  that  the  note  of  the 
new  literature — at  least  the  new  literature  in 
Irish — is  a  '  note  of  pride,  of  self-reliance,  almost 
of  arrogance/  '  I  am  a  Gael/  wrote  MacDonagh, 
.  .  .  my  race  has  refused  to  yield  even  to  defeat, 
and  emerges  strong  to-day,  full  of  hope  and  of 
love,  with  new  strength  in  its  arms  to  work  its 
new  destiny,  with  a  new  song  on  its  lips,  and  the 
words  of  a  new  language  still  calling  from  age 
to  age;  which  is  the  ancient  language.5  J5 

On  Thursday  morning,  May  4th,  four  more  men 
were  shot,  William  Pearse,  Joseph  Plunkett, 
Edward  Daly  and  Michael  O'Hanrahan.  William 
Pearse  was  a  younger  brother  of  P.  H.  Pearse, 
and  a  sculptor.  He  used  to  build  chariots  of  the 
old  heroic  age  for  pageants  at  St.  Enda's.  His 
execution  caused  some  surprise,  for,  although  he 
had  taken  part  in  the  Rebellion,  being  a  devoted 
adherent  of  his  brother,  he  was  not  known  as  a 
leader  of  the  movement.  Joseph  Plunkett  had 
been  a  signatory  of  the  Republican  Proclamation. 
He  belonged  to  a  well-known  and  well-to-do 
Catholic  family  in  Dublin,  many  members  of 
which  held  very  different  political  views  to  his 
own.  His  father  and  mother,  the  (Papal)  Count 
and  Countess  Plunkett,  who  had  been  sympathetic 
towards  the  Volunteers,  were  subsequently  de- 
ported. Count  Plunkett  was  a  member  of  many 
learned  societies,  and  Director  of  the  National 
Museum  in  Dublin.  Joseph  Plunkett  had  for  a 
time  been  editor  of  the  admirable  Irish  Review, 
and  showed  a  fine  literary  judgment  in  his  choice 
of  contributors.  The  columns  of  the  magazine 
were  open  to  all  good  writers  irrespective  of 
political  opinion.    He  was  also  the  author  of  a 


94     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


book  of  poems,  The  Circle  of  the  Sword.  His 
friends  outside  of  the  Volunteer  movement  did 
not  think  of  him  seriously  as  a  man  of  action ;  but 
it  is  now  said  that  he  showed,  while  on  the  Com- 
mittee, as  much  vigour,  decision,  and  practical 
ability  as  any  of  his  colleagues.  Whilst  under 
sentence  of  death,  he  married  Miss  Grace  Gifford, 
a  talented  artist,  and  a  sister  of  Thomas 
MacDonagh's  widow.  One  of  his  brothers  was 
sentenced  to  a  long  term  .of  penal  servitude. 
Edward  Daly,  on  the  other  hand,  was  obviously 
the  soldier  type.  Twenty-four  years  of  age,  and 
an  officer  in  the  first  battalion  of  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers, he  had  command  of  the  Four  Courts  where, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  certain  prisoners 
there,  one  of  them  a  Major  in  the  British  Army, 
an  excellent  discipline  was  maintained  in  the  rebel 
ranks.  Michael  O'Hanrahan  was  a  journalist, 
and  the  author  of  some  racy  tales  of  Irish  life; 
he  had  latterly  been  employed  as  a  clerk  in  the 
Volunteer  organisation. 

Major  John  MacBride,  the  eighth  of  the  rebels 
to  face  a  firing  squad,  was  executed  on  May  6th. 
He  belonged  to  a  well-known  family  of  Westport, 
Co.  Mayo,  and  was  brought  up  in  an  atmosphere 
of  revolt.  His  paternal  relatives  were  the 
Gallaghers  and  the  Gills,  who  were  eventually 
driven  from  Ireland  because  of  their  association 
with  physical  force  movements.  MacBride  was 
in  Johannesburg  when  the  Boer  War  began.  He 
formed  there  a  brigade  of  500  Irishmen,  and  led 
them  against  the  English  in  the  first  struggle 
around  Ladysmith,  winning  his  title  of  Major. 
He  was  popular  with  his  soldiers,  and,  after  the 
British  granted  an  amnesty  to  the  Boers, 
MacBride  was  enabled  to  escape  to  France ;  when 
things  had  quietened  he  returned  to  Dublin.  He 
married   Miss    Maude    Gonne,    the  beautiful 


THE  EI'.'ILUTION'ARY  LEADERS  ' 


a  f 

:~:  vc.irs  Li:?.  Vi:B::ie  seiured  s 
They  had  daring  their  short 

Mac]  L  L  L  .  ;LL. 


ulu.su ~3.:ri-:i 
piudeLt  des:r:ie 

crated  c~  tie  '_~7u 


He  w&s  :ue 

loved  fighting  for  its  own  sake.  On  hearing  at 
lis  suiuriiL  residence  •::  tie  :u:::rriL.  ie  sioud- 
derei  lis  nnsiet  aii  iiiie  lis  wav  :l: :•  tie  ::tv 
He  took  failure  philosophically ,  and,  onrepenting, 
faced  his  end,  not  attempting  to  deny  that  his 
responsibility  for  what  had  occurred  equalled 
that  of  the  open  leaders.  "  His  bearing  was 
u  s:  soldier:-.''  wrote     A  Wayfarer"  in  the 

Eamonn  Ceannt  (Edward  Kent),  Cornelius 
Colbert,  Michael  Mallin  and  J.  J.  Heuston  were 
executed  01  Ma  7  rti.  lie  rrrsr-naned — a 
s  ignatory  to  the  Proclamation — was  a  man  of  about 
thirty,  of  —ion  ;:e  ii^iest  ::::l:;ls  iad  been 
entertained  :u  ::e  inteiertna:  ::::ies  ::  tie  Gaeii: 
League.  He  — as  a  r::d  •::  Irish. .        a  de- 

ment was  in  the  City  Treasurer  s  office.  Colbert 
was  a  boy  from  Clare — unknown,  like  Miriael 
Main  :.l  I  J.  J.  Heuston.  A  n:re  r.  ?pular  uane 
than  anv  of  these  four  was  that  of  The  0*Rahillv. 
Here,  i:  seens.  ~as  a  rennne  F?i~~-.  Tie 

O'Bahilly,  long  before  the  Volunteers  were  heard 


96     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


of,  had  been  one  of  Mr.  Griffith's  keenest  collabora- 
tors, and  it  is,  perhaps,  significant  in  this 
connexion  that  The  O'Rahilly,  like  Mr.  Bulmer 
Hobson — another  former  advocate  of  Sinn  Fein — 
should  have  opposed  the  decision  of  the 
Committee  to  take  the  aggressive.  The  vote  went 
against  his  views;  but  The  O'Rahilly  determined 
to  risk  all  with  his  comrades.  This  circumstance, 
together  with  the  stories  that  have  been  told  of 
his  generosity  to  the  prisoners  in  the  Post  Office, 
is  likely  to  confer  upon  him  a  fortunate  memory. 
He  was  killed  during  the  fighting — the  only  mem- 
ber of  the  Committee  who  did  not  survive  the 
battle.  The  O'Rahilly  was  a  well-travelled  man, 
with  American  connexions,  who  had  something  of 
the  air  of  the  soldier  of  fortune;  he  had  inde- 
pendent means,  was  a  writer  of  occasional  articles 
in  the  Sinn  Fein  Press,  and  had  acquired  a  con- 
versational knowledge  of  Irish. 

James  Connolly  and  Sean  MacDearmada  were 
the  two  last  of  the  signatories  of  the  Republican 
Proclamation  to  be  executed.  Sentence  upon  them 
was  carried  out  on  May  12th.  In  the  case  of 
Connolly  the  delay,  which  was  due  to  wounds  re- 
ceived during  the  fighting,  gave  his  friends  in 
England  an  opportunity  for  raising  a  small  agita- 
tion for  reprieve.  This  agitation  had,  however, 
little  chance  of  success,  owing  to  the  fact  that 
Connolly  had  taken  so  important  a  part — perhaps 
the  most  important  part — in  the  revolutionary 
conspiracy.  Nevertheless,  considerable  feeling  was 
aroused  outside  of  Ireland  by  Connolly's  death, 
and  Captain  White,  an  old  worker  at  Liberty 
Hall,  proceeded  to  Wales,  and  attempted  to  cause 
by  way  of  a  reprisal  a  strike  among  the  miners. 
Sean  MacDearmada  had  no  influence  of  this  kind. 
A  native  of  Limerick,  and  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  Volunteer  movement,  his  associations  were 
purely  with  Nationalist  propaganda.    Never  did 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  97 


he  make  a  secret  of  his  revolutionary  opinions; 
always  at  moments  of  crisis  in  the  history  of  the 
Volunteers,  he  led  the  opposition  to  compromise. 
It  was  in  his  paper,  Irish  Freedom,  that  the  pro- 
ject of  a  German-Irish  alliance  first  received  open 
expression.  He  had  suffered  imprisonment  before 
the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion.  This  young  man 
was  marked  down  in  any  case  for  early  death ;  he 
was  consumptive,  and  in  the  latter  years  of  his 
life  could  only  walk  with  the  aid  of  a  stick.  He 
united  a  singular  sweetness  of  disposition  with  his 
violent  and  incautious  enthusiasm,  and  was  much 
beloved  among  his  intimates. 

Connolly,  the  son  of  a  Cork  artisan,  was  about 
fifty  years  of  age.  Much  of  his  life  had  been 
spent  in  Scotland;  it  was  there  that  he  first  iden- 
tified himself  with  the  Socialist  movement  ;  his 
abilities  were  recognised  by  Mr.  Keir  Hardie  and 
the  Independent  Labour  group,  and  for  a  while 
he  acted  as  a  lecturer  on  Socialism  in  England 
and  Scotland.  The  Transport  Workers'  move- 
ment brought  him  back  to  Ireland,  his  head- 
quarters being  situated  in  Belfast. 

His  family  was  northern  in  origin,  and  he 
always  looked  the  Ulster  type;  his  speech,  ap- 
pearance, and  character  were  rather  foreign  to 
Dublin,  let  alone  Cork.  By  birth  a  Catholic,  he  is 
said  to  have  lost  his  faith  during  his  sojourn 
among  English  labour  men;  on  his  return  to  Ire- 
land he  often  came  into  conflict  on  secular  matters 
with  the  Church  of  his  fathers.  Opinion  credited 
"Liberty  Hall"  with  anti-Catholicism;  and  cer- 
tainly, neither  James  Larkin  nor  James  Connolly 
ever  hesitated  to  hit  back  when  attacked  by  eccle- 
siastical dignitaries.  Connolly's  book,  Labour  in 
Irish  History,  alluded  to  the  Papacy  as  "still  pro- 
viding with  accustomed  skill  and  persistence  a 
scheme  which  looks  upon  Catholic  Ireland  simply 
as  a  tool  to  be  used  for  the  spiritual  re-conquest 

G 


98     THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


of  England  to  Catholicity";  but  in  nothing  that 
he  said  or  wrote  is  there  any  criticism  of  Catholic 
dogma,  let  alone  a  touch  of  anti-Christianism ; 
and  he  died  a  believer.  "  Our  politics  from  home," 
cried  O'Connell,  "our  religion  from  Rome."  That 
much  of  anti-clericalism  has  always  been  in 
Nationalist  movements,  whether  "  extreme "  or 
constitutional  (glance  at  the  history  of  the  Irish 
Parliamentary  Party's  relations  with  the  Hier- 
archy during  the  last  thirty  years);  and  if 
Connolly,  when  baulked  by  a  Bishop,  used  more 
violent  language  than  (say)  Mr.  Devlin  in  similar 
circumstances,  that  was  because  he  had  a  habit  of 
more  violent  language.  On  the  other  hand,  among 
the  Irish  Bishops  and  Priests  themselves,  ultra- 
montanism — it  is  a  significant  thing — is  seldom 
predominant.  Assuredly  it  is  a  fact  of  first-rate 
significance  that  all  the  men  of  the  revolution  of 
1916,  Connolly  and  Casement  included,  should  have 
died  Catholics. 

The  book,  Labour  in  Irish  History,  was 
Connolly's  magnum  opus.  Published  in  1910,  not 
long  after  his  return  to  Ireland,  it  shows  how 
ready  he  was  to  modify  the  Internationalism  that 
he  had  learned  from  books  in  favour  of  the  Irish- 
Ireland  idea.  In  Labour  in  Irish  History 
Connolly  made  a  free  use  of  the  name  of  Karl 
Marx;  but  it  is  doubtful  if  he  really  adhered  to, 
or  even  understood,  the  Socialism  of  that  Master. 
Connolly  was  a  reformer,  though  a  very  violent 
and  impatient  one,  and  a  Christian  democrat. # 

*  The  Irish  Parliamentary  Party  appeals  to  the  general 
ethical  principles  upon  which  the  "  bourgeois  "  liberal  move- 
ments of  the  nineteenth  century  were  founded.  An  analogy 
to  the  dispute  between  Syndicalists  and  Socialists  here  sug- 
gests itself.  "  The  Syndicalists  reject  the  system  of  demo- 
cratic representation  (indirect  action).  .  .  .  They  desire  to 
substitute  for  it  the  '  more  combative  tactics  of  the  revolu- 
tionary army  of  liberty,  middle  class  tactics  founded  upon  the 
tried  ability  of  the  leaders.    Syndicalism  is  hostile  to  the  1  de- 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  99 


The  Marx  theory,  like  modern  Syndicalism, 
supposes  internationalism,  even  anti-patriotism. 
Labour  in  I  risk  History  is,  however,  an  inter- 
esting endeavour  to  exploit  Marxian  conception 
of  the  class  war  to  the  profit  of  Irish  Nationalism, 
or — one  might  put  it  reversely — Irish  National- 
ism to  the  profit  of  Marxian  conception  of  the 
class  war.  Connolly  argued  that  England  was 
the  exponent  in  Ireland  of  the  feudal-capitalist 

mocratic  '  policy  of  the  Socialist  party,  for  the  Syndicalists 
held  that  '  democracy  '  accords  a  mere  caricature  of  the 
fundamental  principles  of  the  labour  movement,  and  they 
declare  that  from  the  1  democratic  '  soil  no  fruit  can  spring 
but  that  c-i  oligarchy  "  (Michel's  ;>  Political  Parties  ").  The 
events  of  1916  in  Ireland  appear  from  this  aspect  like  a  civil 
war,  an  assault  upon  the  oligarchy  that  drew  its  power  from 
popular  suffrage,  but  made  "  a  caricature  of  the  fundamental 
principles  "  of  Irish  Nationalism.  We  are  reminded  >:i 
Sorel's  idea  of  the  catastrophic  revolution;  that  "  atti- 
tude of  spirit  which  was  born  in  ancient  Greece  among  poor 
and  warlike  tribes  whose  immense  aristocratic  pride  was 
fostered  by  poets  who  sang  of  triumphant  expeditions  and 
victorious  battles  scon  to  come.  -1  The  democracy  of  Par- 
liamentary socialism  has,"  says  Sorel,  "for  objective  the 
disappearance  of  class  sentiments.  .  .  .  But  a  great  change 
will  come  upon  the  world  the  day  on  which  the  proletariat 
shall  have  conquered,  what  formerly  the  '  bourgeois  '  con- 
quered, the  sentiment  that  it  is  capable  of  thinking  accord- 
ing to  its  own  conditions  of  life.  The  myth  of  the  general 
strike  has  a  motor  value ;  we  must  not  analyse  it  too  closely, 
nor  in  the  event  of  victory  compare  accomplished  facts  with 
the  representations  of  the  future  that  had  been  made  before 
action."  Compare  one  of  the  leaders  of  1916  on  "  battle  for 
Ireland. "  "  It  is  not  merely  the  love  of  country  felt  by 
the  fatter  nations.  ...  It  is  n?:  merely  the  bve  of  the 
sod  ol  Ireland.  ...  It  is  no:  merely  the  bve  of  liberty,  or  of 
the  rights  of  man.  ...  It  springs  not  merely  from  economic 
grievance,  or  from  grievance  against  the  administration  of 
alien  law.  ...  It  is  the  knowledge  that  there  still  lives  in 
this  country,  in  this  race,  a  "holy  cause.'  "  Irish  Nationalism 
here  takes  ;n  the  character  of  one  of  thos  is  or  mental 

?onstructions  whi:h  "we  must  n:t  analyse  too  closely:'* 
the  passage  to  it  must  not  be  conceived  as  otherwise  th. 

mi  and  satastrophic,  must  never  be  resolved  into  a  sun; 
of  historical  details. 


100    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


system.  "  The  seventeenth,  eighteenth,  and 
nineteenth  centuries  in  Ireland,"  he  wrote, 
"  were,  indeed,  the  Via  Dolorosa  of  the  Irish 
race.  In  them  the  Irish  Gael  sunk  out  of 
sight,  and  in  his  place  the  middle  class  politicians, 
capitalists  and  ecclesiastics  laboured  to  produce 
a  hybrid  Irishman,  assimilating  a  foreign  social 
system,  a  foreign  speech  and  a  foreign  character." 
The  downfall  of  "  England  "  (or  English  influence) 
in  Ireland,  i.e.,  the  triumph  of  Irish  Nationality, 
could,  therefore,  only  be  accomplished  by  the 
triumph  of  such  a  democratic  movement  as  would 
have  for  its  end  the  assertion  of  the  "old  Gaelic 
principle"  of  Common  Ownership  : — 

"  As  we  have  again  and  again  pointed  out,  the 
Irish  question  is  a  social  question — the  whole  age- 
long fight  of  the  Irish  people  against  their  oppres- 
sors resolves  itself  in  the  last  analysis  into  a  fight 
for  the  mastery  of  the  means  of  life,  the  sources 
of  production  in  Ireland.  Who  would  own  or 
control  the  land?  The  people  or  the  invaders; 
and,  if  the  invaders,  which  set  of  them — the  most 
recent  swarm  of  land  thieves  or  the  sons  of  the 
thieves  of  a  former  generation?  " 

Connolly  did  not  make  it  quite  clear  whether  or 
not  he  wished  to  attribute  a  moral  superiority 
to  the  Gaels  among  the  races  of  Europe.  After 
all,  the  Gaels  themselves  came  to  Ireland  as  con- 
querors in  the  first  instance,  and  were  a  small 
minority  in  the  country,  though  no  doubt  re- 
cognising among  themselves  the  principles  of 
equality;  they  were  a  branch  of  the  Aryan- 
German  race  which  later  on,  after  the  Roman 
downfall,  re-established  through  feudalism  an 
aristocratic  society  in  Western  Europe.  The  argu- 
ment from  race  quickly  breaks  down;  it  is  as  if 
some  English  labour  leader  were  suddenly  to  de- 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  LEADERS  101 


elare  that  only  the  has  fonds  of  English  society, 
whose  descent  he  could  trace  from  the  ancient 
Britons,  were  the  incorruptible  inheritors  of  Eng- 
lish patriotism.  There  is  no  nationality  without 
conquest  and  mixture.  Xor,  indeed,  would  the 
triumph  of  the  proletariat  in  the  "  Glass  War  " 
necessarily  lead  to  the  flat  democracy  in  which  no 
"  great  men  "  of  action  would  appear  and  of  which 
Connolly  apparently  dreamed.  A  later  work  of 
Connolly,  the  Reconquest  of  Ireland,  which  is  in 
part  a  compendium  of  the  shocking  statistics  of 
Irish  labour  conditions,  contains  allusions  to  the 
idea  for  Ireland  of  ;*  a  Co-operative  Common- 
wealth/" and  nowhere  attacks  the  question  of  the 
i;  Class  War."  A  writer  in  New  Ireland  sums  up 
his  aims  as  "  greater  organisation  of  the  workers, 
checking  the  present  capitalistic  tyranny  and  en- 
couraging the  Co-operative  movement  " — a  state- 
ment which  hardly  accounts  for  his  adherence  to 
the  Rebellion  of  1916 — but  when  he  attempted  the 
impossible  (this  same  writer  continues)  it  was  as 
a  Xationalist,  not  as  a  Labour  leader. 

Seven  persons,  besides  John  MacXeill,  were 
sentenced  to  penal  servitude  for  life  after  the 
commutation  of  the  death  penalty.  They  included, 
besides  the  celebrated  Madame  Marcieviez, 
founder  of  the  Irish  Boy  Scouts,  a  labour 
member  of  the  Dublin  Corporation,  a  draper's 
assistant,  a  brother  of  the  executed  O'Hanrahan. 
and  Edward  de  Valera.  The  last-named  was 
a  teacher  of  Irish  and  of  mathematics,  who, 
judging  from  the  tributes  to  his  bearing  that 
appeared  from  the  pens  of  acquaintances  un- 
connected with  the  Rebellion,  seems  to  have 
been  the  very  type  of  the  scholar  with  the 
sword.  i;  You  have  but  one  life  to  live  and  one 
death  to  die,"  said  de  Valera  to  his  followers. 
4 'See  that  you  do  both  like  men.  "  Pearse  Beasley. 
who  was  a  Commander  in  the  Four  Courts  and  re- 


102    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


ceived  sentence  of  three  years  penal  servitude,  was 
another  Irish  scholar  and  a  writer.  Desmond  Fitz- 
gerald (ten  years)  was  a  highly-educated  man  who 
had  lived  a  good  deal  in  England.  Partridge  (ten 
years)  and  J.  J.  Walsh  (ten  years)  were  members 
respectively  of  the  Dublin  and  Cork  Corporations. 

We  may  notice,  in  conclusion  of  this  chapter, 
the  striking  absence  among  the  leaders  of  farmers 
and  of  Protestants.  Farmers,  as  John  O'Leary, 
the  Fenian,  noted,  had  never  much  fancy  for 
taking  risks.  But  Protestants  had  been  at  the 
head  of  most  previous  outbreaks  in  Ireland.  In 
1916  there  was  Casement  only,  and  his  Protestant- 
ism was  a  doubtful  quantity ;  George  Irvine,  how- 
ever, the  teacher  in  a  Diocesan  Church  School, 
must  have  been  something  of  a  figure  in  the  Re- 
bellion, for  he  was  sentenced  to  ten  years'  penal 
servitude. 


CHAPTER  V. 

EXTEENAL  INFLUENCES 

Eesuming  our  narrative  of  the  events  which  led 
up  to  the  outbreak,  we  find  that  with  the  definite 
rupture  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  from  the  National 
Volunteers  and  the  emergence  of  the  former  as  an 
individual  force,  a  new  factor,  destined  to  prove 
of  capital  importance  in  the  development  of  the 
situation  in  Ireland,  came  into  play.  This  new 
factor  was  the  active  support  of  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers by  the  extreme  Irish- American  organisations 
in  the  United  States.  It  had  three  results.  In  the 
first  place,  it  supplied  the  Irish  Volunteers  on  a 
fairly  liberal  scale  with  funds  for  propagandist 
work,  for  the  payment  of  organisers,  for  the  pur- 
chase of  equipment  and  arms.  In  the  next  place, 
as  the  implicit  price  of  continued  support  it  urged 
the  Volunteers  into  violent  courses  upon  which 
their  leaders  would  otherwise  have  embarked  less 
readily  and  with  a  less  definite  intention  of 
attempting  to  secure  immediate  results.  Finally, 
it  provided  a  nexus  between  the  Irish  Volunteers 
upon  the  one  hand  and  the  German  Government 
upon  the  other. 

Before  the  breach  between  the  Volunteers  re- 
presenting the  constitutional  party  in  Nationalist 
Ireland  and  those  who,  after  it,  were  the  avowed 
representatives  of  the  physical  force  doctrine,  the 
Volunteer  movement  in  Ireland  had  enjoyed,  of 
course,  a  certain  measure  of  support  from  the 
Irish-American  organisations.  During  the  year, 
from  towards  the  end  of  1913  until  the  summer  of 
1914,  while  the  Volunteers  had  no  official  relation 
to  the  Nationalist  Parliamentary  Party,  consider- 


104    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


able  sums  were  coming  from  America  and  being 
paid  into  various  banks  in  Dublin,  chiefly  in  the 
name  of  John  MacNeill,  President  of  the  Volun- 
teers' General  Council  and  Executive  Committee. 
But  during  this  period  the  support  of  the  move- 
ment by  violent  and  extreme  Irish- American  or- 
ganisations such  as  the  Clan-na-Gael  was  luke- 
warm and  tentative.  The  position  of  the  Volun- 
teer leaders  was  in  some  respects  uncertain  and 
obscure.  They  were  certainly  no  friends  of  the 
leaders  of  the  constitutional  party.  On  the  other 
hand,  they  were  not  open  enemies  of  that  party. 
Their  professed  aim  in  organising  the  Volunteers 
was  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  Nationalist 
Parliamentary  Party  in  securing  the  constitu- 
tional triumph  of  the  Home  Rule  policy,  and,  in 
particular,  in  opposing  the  partition  of  Ireland 
involved  in  the  suggested  compromise  by  which 
the  province  of  Ulster,  or  part  of  it,  was  to  be 
excluded  from  the  operation  of  the  Home  Rule 
Scheme.  Some  at  least  of  the  Volunteer  leaders 
were  known  to  be  men  of  such  aspirations  as  the 
Home  Rule  Bill  would  certainly  not  satisfy.  But 
those  were  days  in  Ireland  when  the  condition  of 
the  country's  politics  was  so  anomalous  and  un- 
precedented that,  in  the  case  of  almost  all  political 
parties  alike,  it  was  supremely  difficult,  if  not 
altogether  impossible,  to  draw  any  absolute  line 
of  division  between  loyalty  and  disloyalty,  or  to 
determine  at  what  point  discontent  with  the  exist- 
ing situation  implied  sedition.  In  this  situation, 
with  its  almost  infinite  and  generally  impercept- 
ible and  indeterminate  gradations  of  sentiment  in 
Ireland,  the  extremist  organisations  in  the  United 
States  for  the  most  part  held  their  hands  and 
adopted  a  policy,  in  President  Wilson's  classical 
phrase,  of  "  watchful  waiting." 

But  the  effect  of  the  war  upon  the  situation  in 
Ireland  resolved  their  doubts  and  discovered  their 


EXTERNAL  INFLUENCES 


105 


opportunity.  For  the  first  time  there  now  began 
to  emerge  a  clean-cut  division  between  the  forces 
of  constitutionalism  and  the  forces  of  violence. 
The  extremists  in  the  United  States  watched  with 
intense  interest  the  development  of  the  situation 
in  Ireland  which  followed  upon  Mr.  John 
Redmond's  declaration  in  the  House  of  Commons 
of  Ireland's  solidarity  with  the  Empire  in  the  war. 
They  witnessed  the  efforts  of  the  majority  of  the 
original  leaders  of  the  Volunteers  to  thwart  by 
every  means  in  their  power  the  prosecution  of  the 
policy  which  he  enunciated  upon  that  historic 
occasion.  They  saw  the  issue,  on  the  eve  of  the 
Prime  Minister's  visit  to  Dublin  on  September 
5th.  1914.  of  the  manifesto  attacking  Mr.  Red- 
mond, declaring  that  "  Ireland  could  not  with 
honour  or  safety  take  part  in  foreign  quarrels, 
other  than  through  the  action  of  an  Irish  Parlia- 
ment," and  repudiating  "  the  claim  of  any  man  to 
offer  up  the  blood  and  lives  of  the  sons  of  Ireland 
and  Irishmen  while  no  National  Government  which 
could  speak  and  act  for  the  people  of  Ireland  is 
allowed  to  exist."  They  saw  Mr.  Redmond's 
reply  to  this  challenge  in  the  letter  in  which,  on 
September  6th.  he  announced  that  owing  to  the 
publication  of  the  manifesto  by  a  minority"  he 
had  taken  steps  to  request  the  majority  of  the 
Provisional  Committee  to  meet  and  re-organise 
the  governing  body  of  the  Volunteers.  They  saw 
the  Convention  of  the  minority,  on  October  25th. 
adopt  the  following  declaration  of  policy  :  — 

(1)  To  maintain  the  right  and  duty  of  the  Irish 
nation  to  provide  for  its  own  defence  by  means  of 
a  permanent  armed  and  trained  Volunteer  force. 

(2)  To  unite  the  people  of  Ireland  on  the  basis 
of  Irish  nationality  and  of  common  interests,  to 
maintain  the  integrity  of  the  nation,  and  to  resist 

*  It  was  a  majority  of  the  original  members. 


106    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


any  measures  tending  to  bring  about  or  per- 
petuate disunion  or  the  partition  of  the  country. 

(3)  To  resist  any  attempts  to  force  the  men  of 
Ireland  into  military  service  until  a  National 
Government  is  empowered  by  the  Irish  people 
themselves  to  deal  with  it. 

(4)  To  secure  the  abolition  of  the  system  of 
governing  Ireland  from  Dublin  Castle,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  National  Government  in  its 
place. 

The  extremist  organisations  in  the  United 
States,  witnessing  these  developments,  at  once 
appreciated  their  implication  and  significance. 
For  the  first  time  there  had  emerged  in  Ireland  a 
party  which  openly  dissociated  itself  from  all  the 
constitutional  parties.  It  had  as  its  cardinal 
article  of  faith  the  assertion  of  the  right  to  main- 
tain a  permanent  armed  and  trained  Volunteer 
force,  despite  the  fact  that  in  the  Home  Rule  Bill 
itself  all  questions  of  defence  were  to  be  expressly 
excluded  from  the  authority  of  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment. Its  policy  of  resistance  to  the  military  ser- 
vice of  Irishmen  under  the  Crown  involved  not 
only  opposition  to  conscription,  should  its  enforce- 
ment in  Ireland  be  attempted,  but  also  the  frus- 
tration of  voluntary  recruiting  efforts.  That 
policy  of  Irish  neutrality  in  the  war  which  the 
Irish  Volunteers  asserted  was  bound  from  their 
very  nature,  in  the  circumstances  in  which  they 
came  into  separate  existence  under  the  emotional 
stress  which  the  outbreak  of  the  war  produced  in 
Ireland,  to  be  transformed  into  a  policy  of  active 
hostility  to  the  British  Government.  The  ex- 
tremist Irish-American  organisations  in  the 
United  States  decided  in  any  case  that,  if  they  sup- 
ported the  new  movement  with  all  the  energy  at 
their  command,  they  could  secure  not  only  this  re- 
sult, but  more — the  definite  association  of  the 
Irish  Volunteers  and  the  German  Government, 


EXTERNAL  INFLUENCES  107 


and  a  working  alliance  between  the  military  in- 
strument of  sedition  which  had  made  its  appear- 
ance in  Ireland  and  the  armed  forces  of  the 
enemy. 

Their  decision  to  lend  the  movement  their 
active  support  was  largely  influenced  by  the 
efforts  of  Casement,  who  had  played  a  consider- 
able part  in  the  original  formation  of  the  Volun- 
teers in  the  autumn  of  1913,  and  whose  absence 
from  the  country  was  stated  in  the  Manifesto 
issued  in  September  1914  to  be  the  sole  reason 
which  prevented  his  being  a  signatory.  Casement, 
at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  was  in  the  United 
States.      Earlier  in  the  year  he   had  been  in 
Germany,  whither  he  is  believed  to  have  gone 
to  arrange  for  the  purchase  of  arms  for  the 
Volunteers.     Casement,  however,  was  on  very 
intimate  relations  with  persons  in  high  autho- 
rity  in   Germany.    Apart   from   the  personal 
friendships  which    he    had  formed  during  his 
career  in  the  British  Diplomatic  Service,  he  had 
also  certain  business  connections  with  German 
firms.    Since  his  retirement  from  the  Diplomatic 
Service,  and  his  return  to  the  development  of  his 
earlier  passionate  interest  in  the  affairs  of  Ireland, 
one  of  the  projects  which  had  engaged  his  atten- 
tion was  the  establishment  of  more  independent 
steamship  communication  between  Ireland  on  the 
one  hand  and  the  Continent  of  Europe  and 
America  on  the  other.    When,  during  the  year 
before  the  war,  the  Cunard  Company,  following 
the  example  of  the  White  Star  Line,  decided  to 
abandon  the  use  of  Queenstown  as  a  port  of  call 
for  mails  and  passengers,  and  thus  leave  Ireland 
without  any  direct  communication  with  the  out- 
side world  by  the  chief  steamship  services,  Case- 
ment at  once  entered  into  negotiations  with  the 
Hamburg-Amerika  Line  for  the  inauguration  by 


108   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


that  company  of  a  service  which  would  make  the 
Queenstown  call.  He  described  in  glowing  terms 
how  the  visits  of  German  ships  en  route  for 
America  would  serve  to  link  up  Ireland — hitherto 
"  an  island  beyond  an  island  " — with  the  Conti- 
nent. He  hoped  that,  even  if  this  project  did  not 
mature,  the  negotiations  could  be  used  as  a  lever 
in  compelling  the  Cunard  Company  to  reconsider 
its  intentions  with  regard  to  Queenstown.  The 
negotiations,  in  the  end,  did  not  secure  even  this 
secondary  result,  and  Casement  convinced  himself 
that  the  project  had  been  rendered  abortive  by 
the  pressure  which  the  Cunard  Company  had  been 
able  to  induce  the  British  Government  to  apply. 
The  incident,  therefore,  not  only  increased  his 
bitterness  against  England  on  the  score  of  what 
he  regarded  as  another  injustice  to  Ireland  and 
another  example  of  British  selfishness,  but  also 
brought  him  into  close  relations  with  Herr  Ballin, 
the  head  of  the  Hamburg-Amerika  Line  and  a 
personal  friend  and  confidant  of  the  German 
Emperor. 

In  these  circumstances  he  constituted,  when  the 
outbreak  of  war  and  the  development  of  events 
in  Ireland  found  him  in  the  United  States,  an 
admirable  intermediary  with  the  Irish-American 
extremists  between  the  revolutionary  party  in 
Ireland  and  the  German  Government.  He  had 
been  identified  with  the  establishment  of  the 
Volunteer  movement  in  Ireland;  he  was  on  in- 
timate terms,  and  in  frequent  communication, 
with  its  leaders ;  he  realised — no  man  better — the 
potentialities  of  the  movement  which  might  be 
realised  while  Great  Britain  and  Germany  were 
in  a  state  of  war.  He  was  a  familiar  figure  to 
the  Irish-American  organisations  through  the 
negotiations  in  which  he  had  earlier  sounded  them 
on  the  question  of  their  support  of  the  Volunteers. 
He  was  known  to  the  German  Embassy  officials 


EXTERNAL  INFLUENCES 


109 


as  a  person  who  stood  high  in  the  regard  of  pro- 
minent Germans,  notably  Herr  Ballin,  in  the  con- 
fidence of  the  Kaiser  and  his  Government,  and 
these  officials  had  improved  their  acquaintance 
with  him  while  they  watched  with  benevolent 
interest  his  negotiations  with  the  Irish- American 
organisations  before  the  outbreak  of  war.  Case- 
ment, therefore,  was  singularly  well  suited  and 
equipped,  in  the  new  situation  created  by  the  war, 
to  enter  into  further  negotiations  in  the  United 
States  with  the  object  of  securing  the  support  of 
Irish- American  extremist  organisations  for  the 
seditious  party  in  Ireland  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
invoking  the  alliance  of  Germany  on  the  other. 
He  had  little  difficulty  in  either  direction.  The 
development  of  events  in  Ireland  had  now  satis- 
fied the  Irish-American  organisations  that  the 
movement  in  Ireland  justified  their  strongest 
possible  support.  Germany's  agents  in  Wash- 
ington equally  had  no  hesitation  in  recommending 
their  Government  to  support  an  enterprise  which 
promised  at  the  worst  considerable  embarrassment 
for  the  British  Government  in  Ireland,  and,  at 
the  best,  the  creation  of  that  situation,  the 
favourite  theme  of  German  naval  and  military 
writers,  in  which  Great  Britain,  engaged  in  the 
active  defence  of  her  strategic  flank  upon  the 
Atlantic  to  the  west,  would  be  exposed  to  oppor- 
tunity for  a  decisive  thrust  across  the  North  Sea 
under  her  weakened  guard  to  the  east. 

From  this  point  onwards,  therefore,  in  the  late 
autumn  of  1914,  all  the  resources  of  the  Irish- 
American  extremist  organisations  in  the  L^nited 
States  were  mobilised  with  the  backing  of  Ger- 
many in  support  of  the  seditious  movement  in 
Ireland,  whose  leaders,  by  virtue  of  the  plenary 
powers  with  which  they  invested  Casement,  en- 
tered into  definite  relations  with  Germany  and  so 
transformed  their   movement,   which  hitherto, 


110    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 

while  always  anti-British,  had  not  been  deliber- 
ately and  actively  aggressive  in  its  somewhat 
nebulous  aims,  into  a  conspiracy  with  the  King's 
enemies  against  the  security  of  the  Realm.  A 
grandiose  scheme  of  German-Irish  propaganda 
was  promptly  initiated  in  the  United  States  under 
auspices  of  the  Clan-na-Gael.  That  secret  society, 
which  was  languishing  until  the  outbreak  of  war, 
although  the  first  foundation  of  the  Volunteer 
movement  in  Southern  Ireland  has  given  it  an 
opportunity  of  recovering  something  of  its  decay- 
ing prestige,  threw  itself  into  the  campaign  with 
all  the  energy  which  the  necessity  of  re-establish- 
ing itself  in  the  good  graces  of  Germany — from 
whom  in  part,  and  in  part  from  members'  sub- 
scriptions, its  funds  are  drawn — imposed  upon 
it. 

The  campaign  reached  its  culmination,  after 
much  preliminary  work  conducted  through  the 
newspapers,  by  meetings,  and  by  the  wholesale  dis- 
tribution of  literature,  in  August  1915,  when  the 
Clan-na-Gael  received  a  large  grant  from  Ger- 
many on  the  understanding  that  the  Executive  at 
the  same  time  collected  vigorously  from  its 
members.  A  "  Defence  of  Ireland  Fund"  was 
started,  and  a  collecting  card  distributed.  The 
propaganda — encouraged  as  its  authors  were  by 
the  complaisance  of  the  Washington  Government 
and  by  the  contemptuous  refusal  of  the  British 
Government,  in  spite  of  the  urgent  representation 
of  pro-Ally  American  newspapers,  to  take  any 
steps  through  its  Embassy  to  counteract  the  in- 
fluence of  the  agitation — had  by  this  time  become 
impudently  open  in  its  designs.  The  phraseology 
of  the  card  distributed  on  behalf  of  the  "  Defence 
of  Ireland  Fund  "  left  not  the  smallest  doubt  that 
the  object  of  the  Fund  was  to  support  an  Irish 
rebellion.  The  collection  achieved  a  not  incon- 
siderable success,  though  very  much  less  than  its 


EXTERNAL  INFLUENCES  111 


authors  hoped.  In  March  of  1916  when  the  Irish 
Race  Convention  was  held  in  New  York,  matters 
were  so  far  advanced  that  in  the  final  appeal  for 
funds  the  following  words  were  used : — "  Not  only 
must  the  organisation  be  made  in  great  numbers, 
but  in  material  resources  it  must  be  put  in  a 
position  to  grapple  successfully  with  the  great 
problem  which  it  has  been  called  into  existence  to 
solve,  by  giving  to  Ireland  the  help  which  she  so 
badly  needs  in  this  hour  of  her  great  danger  and 
of  her  opportunity." 

Meanwhile,  in  December  1914,  Casement, 
having  laid  everything  in  train  in  the  United 
States,  left  New  York  for  Germany,  where  his 
presence  was  desired  for  the  purpose  of  placing 
his  knowledge  of  the  situation  at  the  disposal  of 
the  German  Government  and  of  keeping  it  in 
closer  and  more  continuous  contact  and  commu- 
nication with  the  development  of  events  in  Ireland 
than  was  possible  through  the  circuitous  channel 
of  Washington.  In  Germany,  moreover,  Case- 
ment proposed  to  put  into  practice  a  project  which 
revealed,  for  all  his  extensive  and  authentic 
knowledge  of  Irish  conditions,  a  gross  misconcep- 
tion of  certain  aspects  of  the  mass  psychology  of 
Irishmen  and  of  the  individual  Irish  temperament. 
This  project  was  the  formation,  from  the  Irish 
prisoners  of  war  in  the  internment  camps  of 
Germany,  of  an  "  Irish  Brigade  M  which  should 
revive,  under  the  flag  of  Prussia,  the  glories  of 
the  Brigade  which  in  an  earlier  century  had  fought 
on  the  same  fields  of  Flanders  under  the  colours 
of  France. 

Among  the  British  prisoners  captured  during 
the  retreat  from  Mons  and  in  the  battle  of  Ypres- 
Armentieres  were  a  considerable  number  of  Irish 
soldiers.  Between  these  and  other  prisoners  there 
was  at  first  no  differentiation;  but  in  December, 
1914,  the  Irish  prisoners  were  removed  from  the 


112   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


various  camps  and  collected  together  into  a 
large  camp  at  Limberg.  They  were  so  collected 
for  the  purpose  of  listening  to  lectures  and 
addresses  from  Casement,  who  moved  about  the 
camp  freely,  sometimes  conversing  with  the  men 
individually.  He  "introduced  himself  to  them  as 
the  organiser  of  the  Irish  Volunteers.  He  stated 
that  he  was  forming  an  Irish  Brigade,  and  invited 
all  the  Irish  prisoners  in  Germany  to  join  it.  He 
urged  that  everything  was  to  be  gained  for  Ireland 
by  a  German  victory.  Now  was  the  time  to  strike 
a  blow  for  Ireland.  Those  who  joined  the  Irish 
Brigade  would  be  sent  to  Berlin;  they  would 
become  the  guests  of  the  Imperial  German  Govern- 
ment, and,  in  the  event  of  Germany's  winning  a 
battle  at  sea,  he  would  land  the  Brigade  in  Ire- 
land and  defend  the  country  against  the  English 
enemy.  In  the  event  of  Germany's  losing  the  war, 
either  he  or  the  German  Government  would  give 
every  man  of  the  Brigade  a  bonus  of  from 
ten  to  twenty  pounds  and  a  free  passage  to  the 
United  States.  Copies  of  the  Gaelic  A  merican  and 
of  two  books,  "  The  Crime  against  Ireland  "  and 
"  The  King,  the  Kaiser  and  Ireland,"  were  cir- 
culated in  the  camp.  Forms  were  handed  to  the 
prisoners,  containing  a  number  of  questions,  one 
of  which  ran : — "  Are  you  willing  to  fight  for  your 
own  country,  with  a  view  to  securing  the  National 
freedom  of  Ireland?  With  the  moral  and 
material  assistance  of  the  German  Government  an 
Irish  Brigade  is  being  formed."  A  pamphlet  was 
circulated  among  the  prisoners:  "  Irishmen,  here 
is  a  chance  for  you  to  fight  for  Ireland.  You  have 
fought  for  England,  your  country's  hereditary 
enemy.  You  have  fought  for  Belgium,  though  it 
was  no  more  to  you  than  the  Fiji  Islands.  Are 
you  willing  to  fight  for  your  own  country,  with  a 
view  to  securing  the  National  freedom  of  Ireland? 
The  object  of  the  Irish  Brigade  shall  be  to  fight 


EXTERNAL  INFLUENCES  113 


solely  in  the  cause  of  Ireland,  and  in  no  circum- 
sances  shall  it  be  directed  to  the  interests  of 
Germany."  The  pamphlet  went  on  to  declare 
that  the  Brigade  would  fight  under  the  Irish  flag 
alone,  with  a  distinctive  Irish  uniform,  and 
Irish  officers.  It  was  further  stated  that  the  Irish 
in  America  were  raising  money  for  the  Brigade. 
The  pamphlet  concluded  "  Remember  Bachelor's 
Walk.    God  Save  Ireland." 

In  a  word,  every  possible  means  were  used  to 
seduce  the  Irish  soldiers  from  their  oath  of 
allegiance  and  induce  them  to  exchange  the 
miseries  of  existence  in  the  internment  camps  for 
the  comfort  of  life  in  the  Irish  Brigade.  Subtle 
appeals  were  made  to  their  sentiment  as  Irish 
Nationalists,  to  their  natural  desire  as  captives 
to  become  free  men,  to  their  instinctive  revolt 
against  the  discomfort,  the  squalor,  and  the  in- 
dignity of  the  prisoner's  lot.  When  other  means 
failed,  when  persuasion  had  proved  fruitless, 
coercion  was  employed  instead.  With  the  resort 
to  coercion  Casement,  it  is  supposed,  was  not 
associated;  and  he  stated  at  his  trial  that  the 
rations  were  reduced  among  the  other  prisoners 
at  exactly  the  same  time  and  to  the  same  extent. 
Very  bad  accounts  of  the  subsequent  condition  of 
the  Irish  soldiers  appeared,  however,  in  the  Press. 
The  test  must  have  been  a  cruel  one ;  and  yet  out 
of  two  thousand  five  hundred  men,  only  fifty-two 
joined  the  Irish  Brigade.  Recruiting  was  con- 
tinued until  February,  1915,  when  Casement  and 
his  friends  realised  that  their  efforts  were  hope- 
less, and  the  Irish  prisoners  were  dispersed  from 
Limberg  to  the  camps  from  which  they  had  been 
concentrated. 

Casement's  failure  in  this  enterprise  produced 
a  certain  coolness  and  suspicion  in  his  relations 
with  the  German  Government.  It  suggested  to  the 
Germans  that,  if  his  judgment  was  so  completely 

H 


114    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


at  fault  in  this  department  of  the  plan  of  campaign 
upon  which  he  had  embarked  with  such  assur- 
ance, that  judgment  might  equally  lead  them 
astray  in  other  aspects  of  their  Irish  association. 
From  this  point  the  German  Government  moved 
more  cautiously  and  less  surely  in  its  attempt  to 
turn  the  situation  in  Ireland  into  profitable 
account  in  its  prosecution  of  the  war.  Casement, 
however,  remained  in  Germany,  and  continued  to 
constitute  the  focus  of  communication  between 
Berlin,  Washington  and  Dublin. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OEGANISATION 

Once  assured  of  the  active  support  of  Germany 
and  the  Irish- American  extremists,  and  conse- 
quently of  ample  funds,  the  rebellious  movement 
in  Ireland  made,  in  its  military  aspect,  swift  and 
considerable  strides.  At  the  date  of  the  split  in 
the  Volunteer  organisation  in  the  autumn  of  1914, 
not  more  than  eleven  thousand  men  adhered  to  the 
advanced  section  of  the  original  Provisional  Com- 
mittee. As  a  military  force  they  were,  at  this  time, 
altogether  negligible.  They  were  untrained  and 
almost  entirely  unequipped.  During  1915,  how- 
ever, the  situation  completely  changed.  The  funds 
f om  America — whose  method  of  receipt  in  Ireland 
the  police  were  unable  to  trace  after  the  split — 
were  largely  expended  not  only  in  the  maintenance 
of  seditious  newspapers  and  the  circulation  of 
seditious  leaflets,  but  also  in  the  employment  of 
organisers  whose  function  it  was  to  travel  the 
country  and  win  people  to  join  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers, and  become  in  their  turn  organisers  in  this 
direction.  Side  by  side  with  the  propagandist 
work,  conducted  through  newspapers  intended  to 
intensify  the  feelings  and  add  to  the  numbers  of 
persons  who  were  anti-British  and  opposed  to  re- 
cruiting— newspapers  which  had  a  hand-to-hand 
circulation,  and  could  obviously  draw  a  very  small 
measure  of  support  and  revenue  either  from  sales 
or  from  advertisements — the  work  of  military  or- 
ganisation proceeded  actively.  Eight  organisers 
were  employed  at  a  salary  of  £150  a  year,  and  in 
addition  the  leaders  paid  from  time  to  time  per- 
sonal visits  to  the  districts  where  the  movement 


116    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


had  made  good  progress.  The  organisers,  travel- 
ling the  country,  accepted  invitations  from  sym- 
pathisers in  the  various  counties,  or,  in  districts 
where  the  Irish  Volunteers  had  at  present  few  ad- 
herents, explored  -the  situation  on  their  own 
account.  Meetings,  conducted  on  the  lines  of 
Army  recruiting  meetings,  were  held,  and  the  ob- 
jects of  the  Volunteers  were  explained.  These 
meetings,  organised  everywhere  throughout  the 
three  Southern  Provinces,  and  in  some  parts  of 
Ulster,  even  when  they  secured  few  recruits  for 
the  Volunteers,  had  the  negative  result  of  bring- 
ing recruiting  for  the  Army  virtually  to  a  stand- 
still. A  subtle  atmosphere  of  disaffection  spread 
through  the  country  and,  where  it  did  not  issue  in 
active  support  for  the  Volunteers,  at  least  dis- 
armed opposition  to  the  work  of  the  organisers. 
At  the  meetings  persons  were  enrolled,  and  the 
establishment  of  the  branch  was  reported  to  the 
headquarters  in  Dublin,  which  kept  in  close  and 
continuous  communication  with  it.  The  members 
were  drilled  by  the  organiser,  and  were  urged  to 
extend  the  movement  among  their  friends. 
Women's  societies  were  formed,  and  members 
were  trained  for  first-aid  work. 

James  Connolly's  Citizen  Army,  with  its  head- 
quarters in  Dublin,  was  an  organisation  at  the 
outset  wholly  independent  of,  and  indeed  hostile 
to,  the  Irish  Volunteers.  The  ideals  of  the  two 
bodies  were  fundamentally  alien  and  opposed. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  Irish  Volunteers  stood  for 
the  doctrine  of  nationality  in  its  most  extreme  ex- 
pression. On  the  other  hand,  the  Citizen  Army 
stood  for  those  doctrines  of  international  Syn- 
dicalism which  James  Larkin  had  for  the  first 
time  introduced  into  the  unreceptive  soil  of 
Ireland.  The  principles  upon  which  the  one  body 
was  established  were  wholly  political;  the  prin- 
ciples upon  which  the  other  was  established  were 


ORGANISATION 


117 


largely  social.  There  was  thus  a  certain  anti- 
thesis between  the  two  organisations,  though, 
as  we  have  seen  in  our  study  of  Connolly,  it 
was  an  antithesis  by  no  means  complete.  They 
had,  however,  this  point  in  common — that  both 
represented  the  forces  of  revolutionary  change  as 
opposed  to  the  forces  of  order,  the  one  objecting 
to  the  existing  system  on  the  score  of  politics,  the 
other  objecting  to  the  existing  system  on  the  score 
of  economics.  The  forces  of  revolution,  however 
divided  in  their  aims  and  ideate  among  them- 
selves, were  not  so  strong  that,  if  they  could  find 
any  basis  of  common  action,  they  could  afford  to 
neglect  the  advantages  of  acting  in  harmony  and 
not  in  discord.  Upon  this  basis  of  a  community 
of  purpose  which  consisted  in  opposition  to  the 
settled  order  of  things,  therefore,  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers and  the  Citizen  Army  founded  a  working 
alliance.  They  were  brought  together  by  the  fact 
that  the  leaders  of  the  Irish  Republican  Brother- 
hood— the  revolutionary  secret  society  which  had 
persisted  since  the  Fenian  days — were  known  both 
to  the  leaders  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  and  the 
leaders  of  the  Citizen  Army,  notably  James 
Connolly  and  the  Countess  Marcievicz.  When  an 
identity  of  interest  and  purpose  was  established 
between  the  Irish  Republican  Brotherhood  and 
Sinn  Fein,  the  leaders  of  the  former  represented 
to  the  labour  leaders  that  the  prospects  of  over- 
throwing the  existing  regime  would  be  improved 
by  a  fusion  of  the  military  instruments  of  revolu- 
tionary ideas  represented  by  the  Irish  Volunteers 
and  the  Citizen  Army. 

Thus  there  was  introduced  the  novel  feature  in 
Irish  rebellions  of  an  element  not  purely  national, 
but  largely  international,  and  in  some  respects 
opposed  to  the  doctrines  which  the  prime  movers 
in  this  rebellion,  in  common  with  all  earlier  re- 
bellions,   asserted.     The    unexpected  alliance 


118    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


between  extreme  Nationalism  and  labour  inter- 
nationalism— an  alliance  as  surprising  as  the  alli- 
ance between  Sinn  Fein  and  Germany — brought 
comparatively  small  profit  to  the  revolutionary 
movement  in  point  of  numbers;  for  the  Citizen 
Army  had  no  effective  existence  outside  Dublin, 
and  in  the  capital  its  adherents  were  numbered  by 
hundreds  while  those  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  were 
numbered  by  thousands.  It  exerted,  however,  a 
very  considerable  influence  in  point  of  personality. 
While  the  two  organisations  were  kept  distinct, 
though  they  interchanged  instructors  and  arms, 
the  supreme  direction  of  the  rebel  movement  now 
became  completely  united,  and  in  the  rebel  councils 
the  dynamic  personality  of  Connolly  acquired  a 
dominant  influence,  urging  his  colleagues  into  vio- 
lent courses,  and  supplying  a  powerful  moral 
impulse  to  the  whole  movement. 

In  the  ranks  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  and  the 
Citizen  Army  were  to  be  found  a  small,  but  very 
valuable,  proportion  of  old  soldiers,  some  of  them 
Irish-Americans  who  had  seen  service  in  the 
United  States  Army.  These  toured  the  country, 
improving  the  elementary  instruction  given  to  the 
branches  by  the  organisers  and  imparting  their 
knowledge  to  those  members  who  had  proved 
themselves  most  competent  and  received  the  most 
advanced  training  before  the  rupture  from  the 
National  Volunteers,  when  the  percentage  of  old 
soldiers  and  other  skilled  instructors  in  the  Volun- 
teer ranks  had  been  considerable.  These  men  thus 
trained  carried  on  the  work  of  instruction  and 
drilling  in  the  branches.  The  subordinate  officers 
were  in  the  majority  of  cases  men  of  some  educa- 
tion and  alert  mind,  who  gave  close  attention  to 
their  duties,  studied  infantry  training  manuals, 
and  rapidly  became  competent  commanders.  Ex- 
cellent miiitary  articles,  moreover,  were  contri- 
buted every  week  to  the  journal  of  the  organisa- 


ORGANISATION 


119 


tion,  the  Irish  Volunteer,  giving  instructions  as 
to  street  and  hedge  fighting  and  the  digging  of 
trenches.  The  most  conspicuous  defect  in  the 
military  organisation  of  the  Volunteers  was  the 
lack  of  efficient  staff  work,  but  in  this  department 
the  resources  of  Germany  were  called  in  aid,  and 
voluminous  memoranda  on  the  higher  direction  of 
affairs  reached  the  headquarters  through  various 
channels  from  Washington  and  Berlin. 

By  the  end  of  nearly  eighteen  months'  hard  and 
constant  work,  from  the  date  of  the  separate  i 
foundation  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  in  the  autumn 
of  1914  to  the  date  of  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion 
in  the  spring  of  1916,  the  work  of  military  organi- 
sation was  very  complete  and  the  members  of  the 
association  were  well  trained.  They  practised  rifle 
shooting,  largely  at  miniature  ranges,  assiduously. 
Efficiency  in  this  regard  was  stimulated  by  the  com- 
petitions conducted  by  the  Irish  Volunteer,  which 
offered  rifles  as  prizes  for  marksmanship.  Officers' 
training  schools  were  established,  and  drilling 
was  carried  on  without  intermission.  As  the  year 
1915  advanced,  manoeuvres  were  frequently  and 
openly  held  by  the  Volunteers  in  the  country.  In 
October  of  that  vear  the  Citizen  Army  rehearsed 
at  night  in  Dublin  operations  in  which  the  cap- 
ture of  Dublin  Castle  was  the  most  conspicuous 
feature.  The  two  revolutionary  bodies  disposed, 
in  the  spring  of  1916,  of  a  military  force  which 
in  point  of  numbers,  organisation,  and  training, 
was  efficient  and  formidable. 

The  chief  weakness  of  this  force — the  weakness 
which  for  a  considerable  time  influenced  the  Irish 
Government  most  stronglv  in  its  decision  not  to 
proceed  to  extreme  measures  against  the  seditious 
organisation — consisted  in  the  deficiency  of  its 
armament.  At  the  time  of  the  split  in  the  Volun- 
teers they  were,  as  a  whole,  very  inadequately 
supplied  with  arms,  and  the  advanced  section 


120   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


which  seceded  from  the  main  body  was  the  worst 
equipped  in  this  respect.  Up  to  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  wide  facilities  existed  for  the  procuring 
and  carrying  of  arms  in  Ireland.  In  1906,  when 
the  Liberal  Government  came  into  power,  the 
Peace  Preservation  Act,  commonly  known  as  the 
Arms  Act,  was  repealed.  At  that  time  the  In- 
spector-General of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary 
recorded  a  strong  protest  against  the  abandonment 
of  the  measure.  In  his  report  upon  its  lapse  he 
suggested  the  extension  of  the  Pistols  Act  of  1903 
to  Ireland,  as  its  restrictions,  though  small,  would 
be  some  safeguard  against  the  purchase  of  revol- 
vers for  improper  purposes.  The  report  pointed 
out  that  the  lapse  of  the  Peace  Preservation  Act 
would  result  in  the  general  formation  of  rifle  clubs, 
and  suggested  a  closer  supervision  of  the  vendors 
of  arms  and  explosives,  that  some  direct  obligation 
should  be  placed  upon  them  to  see  that  the  persons 
to  whom  they  sold  explosives  were  duly  certifi- 
cated, and  that  they  should  be  required  to  register 
their  sales.  Some  time  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
war  the  precautions  embodied  in  these  recommen- 
dations were  made  obligatory,  when  they  were 
brought  within  the  scope  of  the  Defence  of  the 
Realm  Regulations. 

The  application  of  more  extensive  precautions, 
or  even  the  rigid  enforcement  of  these  precautions, 
were  made  very  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  the 
military  and  police  authorities,  by  the  legacy  which 
persisted  after  the  outbreak  of  war  of  the  Govern- 
ment's general  policy  towards  Ireland  before 
it.  The  hands  of  the  authorities  were  tied  by  the 
attitude  of  the  Government  which  had  given  tacit 
consent  to  the  revival  of  the  physical  force  doc- 
trine in  the  case  of  the  Ulster  Volunteers,  and  had 
logically  acquiesced  in  the  formation  of  a  rival 
organisation  on  the  Nationalist  side  and  the  turn- 
ing of  Ireland  into  an  arsenal.    They  were  tied, 


ORGANISATION 


121 


particularly,  by  the  ruling  of  the  Royal  Commis- 
sion of  Inquiry  into  the  circumstances  of  the  land- 
ing of  arms  at  Howth  just  before  the  outbreak  of 
war  that  the  attempt  made  to  deprive  the  National 
Volunteers  of  arms  surreptitiously  landed  for  their 
use  was  illegal.  By  the  end  of  1914,  however,  it 
was  recognised  that  the  Irish  Volunteer  organi- 
sation, in  the  personnel  of  the  Committee,  its  de- 
claration of  policy,  the  utterances  of  its  leading 
representatives  in  the  Press  and  at  public  meet- 
ings, its  opposition  to  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Redmond 
and  the  Nationalist  Parliamentary  Party  to  bring 
Ireland  into  line  with  Great  Britain  in  the  war, 
and  its  crusade  against  enlistment  into  the  Army, 
had  shown  itself  to  be  a  potential  danger  to  the 
British  power  in  Ireland.  It  was  further  recog- 
nised that  it  must  be  treated  on  different  terms 
from  the  other  Volunteer  bodies  in  Ireland,  and 
henceforth  the  proceedings  of  the  organisation 
were  carefully  watched. 

The  policy  of  not  allowing  Government  servants 
to  belong  to  it  was  consistently  followed,  and 
where  membership  had  been  found  to  continue 
after  warning  had  been  given  dismissal  followed. 
Persons  were  dismissed  from  the  Post  Office,  the 
Inland  Revenue,  the  Ordnance  Survey  and  Ord- 
nance Stores,  and  other  Government  departments. 
Considerable  numbers  whose  association  with  the 
Irish  Volunteers  could  not  be  proved,  however, 
remained  in  the  Government's  employment.  In 
the  case  of  priests  assisting  the  Volunteers  in  any 
public  way  representations  were  made  to  the 
higher  ecclesiastical  authority.  The  priests  in 
general  discountenanced  the  movement,  but  some 
of  the  younger  clergy  in  certain  districts  pro- 
minently identified  themselves  with  it,  and  publicly 
delivered  violent  speeches  in  its  support.  Action 
against  seditious  newspapers  was  taken  during 
the  winter  of  1914,  but  during  the  following  year 


122    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


they  reappeared  under  different  names,  and, 
though  the  question  of  their  suppression  was  from 
time  to  time  considered  by  the  Irish  Government, 
their  activity  proceeded  with  few  checks  during 
the  year,  and  continued  with  ever  increasing 
licence  up  to  the  date  of  the  outbreak  in  April, 
1916. 

In  dealing  with  the  movement  in  its  military 
aspect  the  military  and  police  authorities  were 
hampered,  in  the  same  way  as  they  were  ham- 
pered in  dealing  with  it  in  its  propagandist 
aspect,  by  the  vis  inertice  of  the  Irish  Government. 
Mr.  Birrell,  in  announcing  his  resignation  of  the 
office  of  Chief  Secetary  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
admitted  that  he  had  formed  an  incorrect  estimate 
of  the  danger  of  the  seditious  movement.  The 
responsibility  of  the  Irish  Government  for  per- 
mitting it  to  attain  such  formidable  dimensions 
was,  indeed,  incapable  of  evasion;  but  it  may  be 
conceded  that  the  Irish  Government  suffered  under 
certain  disabilities.  An  amendment  to  the  Defence 
of  the  Realm  Act  had  deleted  the  provision 
whereby  offences  under  it  could  be  tried  by  court- 
martial.  In  the  atmosphere  which  the  seditious 
propaganda  had  engendered  in  Ireland,  neither 
benches  of  magistrates  nor  juries  could  not  be 
trusted  to  try  these  cases.  Obvious  miscarriages 
of  justice  occurred  in  Dublin,  Cork  and  elsewhere. 
It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  bring  such  cases 
before  stipendary  magistrates,  and  these  had  no 
power,  however  serious  the  offence,  to  impose  more 
than  the  maximum  punishment  of  six  months' 
hard  labour,  which  did  not  prove  an  adequate 
deterrent.  In  July  1915,  four  of  the  Volunteers' 
organising  instructors  were  so  tried  and  sentenced, 
one  to  four  and  others  to  three  months  im- 
prisonment, and  were  ordered,  under  the  power 
conferred  on  the  authorities  by  the  Defence  of  the 
Realm  Act,  to  leave  Ireland;  but  they  were  told 


ORGANISATION  123 


that  at  the  expiration  of  their  sentences  the  order 
would  not  be  enforced  unless  their  conduct  was 
unsatisfactory,  Two  of  them  were  deported,  and 
their  deportation  was  followed  by  somewhat 
violent  demonstrations  in  Dublin.  One  of  these 
men,  Mellowes  by  name,  subsequently  returned, 
and  led  the  insurrection  in  Galway. 

The  general  attitude  of  the  Irish  Government, 
however,  was  that  the  movement  was  not  capable 
of  becoming  dangerous  unless  its  members  were 
armed.  That  Government  expressed  itself,  in  its 
subsequent  apologia  through  the  mouth  of  Mr. 
Birrell  and  his  subordinates,  as  considering  it  of 
primary  importance  to  prevent  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers from  becoming  a  military  danger  and  to 
place  every  obstacle  in  the  way  of  arms  and 
ammunition  getting  into  their  hands.  But  no 
steps  were  taken  to  make  even  this  policy 
thoroughly  effective.  It  was  not  until  late  in  1915 
that  the  importation  of  arms  and  ammunition  into 
Ireland  was  absolutely  prohibited.  Up  to  this  time 
they  were  freely  imported,  subject  to  the  precau- 
tions recommended  by  the  Inspector-General  of 
Royal  Irish  Constabulary  and  detailed  above,  for 
the  use  of  Volunteer  bodies  other  than  the  Irish 
Volunteers,  and  the  military  and  police  authori- 
ties had  to  endeavour  to  discriminate  as  best  they 
could  against  consignments  which  they  thought 
were  ultimately  intended  for  the  seditious  organi- 
sation, being  always  compelled  to  apply  for 
sanction  to  the  civil  authorities,  and  being  at 
every  turn  frustrated  in  their  efforts  by  the  stand- 
ing instructions  of  those  authorities  that  they  must 
avoid  wherever  possible  any  action  at  all  likely 
to  provoke  an  open  conflict  with  the  Volunteers. 
In  these  circumstances  it  was  impossible  to 
prevent  a  somewhat  extensive  leakage.  English 
manufacturers  had  been  importing  freely  into 
Ireland  for  some  time  after  the  outbreak  of  war, 


124    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


and  even  after  importation  was  forbidden  owing 
to  the  action  of  the  Customs  examiners  it  was  not 
practicable  to  stop  forbidden  goods  from  getting 
through.  As  late  as  April  16th,  1916,  a  case  of 
bayonets  was  detected  by  the  police  on  the  way 
from  a  Sheffield  cutler  to  a  Sinn  Fein  manager  of 
what  was  believed  to  be  a  loyalist  firm. 

The  Irish  Volunteers  employed  other  methods 
besides  smuggling  of  this  kind  for  obtaining 
possession  of  arms  and  ammunition.  Revolvers 
and  pistols,  to  a  number  known  to  be  much  in  ex- 
cess of  that  on  record,  were  brought  into  Ireland 
in  passengers'  luggage  and  otherwise.  There 
were  extensive  thefts  of  rifles  consigned  to  the 
National  Volunteers.  In  one  case  in  August,  1915, 
a  hundred  rifles  consigned  to  them,  which  came  in 
openly  with  the  permission  of  the  Government, 
were  stolen  from  the  railway  company,  probably 
with  the  connivance  of  one  of  the  company's  em- 
ployees; these  rifles  were  taken  away  about  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  apparently  removed  in 
a  motor  car.  There  were  defections  throughout 
1915  from  the  National  Volunteers  to  the  Irish 
Volunteers,  and  in  this  way  also  a  number  of  rifles 
consigned  to  the  former  eventually  found  their 
way  to  the  latter.  Further,  there  were  thefts  of 
rifles  from  the  military  which  amounted  in  the 
aggregate  to  a  considerable  number.  In  addition, 
rifles  were  purchased  from  soldiers  on  leave.  It 
was  known  to  the  authorities  that  there  had  been 
at  least  one  considerable  theft  of  military  ammu- 
nition and  also  that  the  rounds  carried  by  soldiers 
were  being  purchased.  Finally,  man-killing  am- 
munition for  minature  rifles  and  shot  guns,  as 
well  as  bombs,  were  manufactured  in  various 
secret  arsenals.  Offences  connected  with  thefts  of 
explosives  and  the  manufacture  of  bombs  occurred 
in  Enniscorthy  in  Co.  Wexford,  in  Sligo,  in  Co. 
Galway,  at  Cork,  and  in  Castlebellingham  in  Co. 


ORGANISATION 


125 


Louth,  as  well  as  in  Lanarkshire  in  Scotland,  at 
different  dates  in  1915.  Searches  made  from  time 
to  time  in  Dublin  and  the  provinces,  however,  had 
revealed  no  considerable  store  either  of  arms  or 
ammunition,  and  the  authorities  were  led  to 
believe  that  there  was  no  great  supply  of  ammu- 
nition in  the  hands  of  the  Volunteers — an  impres- 
sion which  was,  as  the  event  proved,  entirely  erro- 
neous. 

In  January  1916,  the  Inspector- General  of  the 
Eoyal  Irish  Constabulary,  who  had  throughout 
taken  a  much  more  serious  view  of  the  situation 
than  the  Irish  Government,  drew  the  attention  of 
the  Chief  Secretary  to  the  public  danger  that  arose 
from  the  fact  that  extremists  were  believed  to  be 
getting  possession  of  explosives,  and  urged  the 
necessity  for  more  rigid  regulations  in  Ireland 
against  their  unauthorised  possession.  He  also 
stated  that  he  considered  it  deserving  of  consider- 
ation (a)  Whether  the  time  had  not  now  come  to 
put  some  limit  to  the  carrying  of  rifles,  shot  guns 
and  revolvers  by  persons  who  would  be  likely  to 
abuse  the  privilege;  (b)  whether  all  persons  not 
connected  with  the  forces  of  the  Crown  should  not 
be  obliged  to  get  a  military  permit  to  carry  rifles 
and  revolvers,  and  whether  a  similar  permit 
should  not  be  necessary  for  training  in  drill  or  in 
the  use  of  firearms.  Some  time  later — only  a  short 
time,  in  fact,  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion 
in  April — the  Attorney- General  for  Ireland  sub- 
mitted to  the  Chief  Secretary  a  minute  to  this 
effect :  4  4  I  can  conceive  nothing  more  dangerous 
or  mischievous  than  to  allow  at  this  time  any  per- 
son to  parade  in  public  carrying  rifles,  bayonets, 
or  arms  of  any  description  which  can  be  identified 
as  military  service  weapons,  the  property  of  His 
Majesty.  In  my  opinion  ample  machinery  exists 
for  dealing  with  such  cases,  as  possession  is  prima 
facie  unlawful,  and  they  can  only  have  been 


126    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


acquired  by  those  in  possession  of  them  in  one  or 
other  of  the  following  ways:  by  direct  theft 
from  a  soldier,  by  being  purchased  from  a  soldier, 
or  by  direct  theft  from  the  stores,  or  by  sale  or  gift 
by  the  persons  in  charge  of  the  stores.   All  these 
methods  are  unlawful,  and  the  persons  in  posses- 
sion can  be  proceeded  against  my  several  different 
methods."   The  Attorney- General  recommended 
that  proceedings  should  be  taken  under  Regula- 
tion No.  2  of  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act,  a 
regulation  expressly  framed  for  the  emergency  of 
war.    "  It  is  true,"  the  minute  proceeded,  "  that 
the  seizure  must  be  necessary  for  securing  the 
public  peace  or  the  Defence  of  the  Realm;  but  I 
can  hardly  conceive  any  circumstances  under 
which  it  would  be  more  necessary  for  each  of  these 
purposes  to  direct  the  seizure  than  in  the  cases 
under  consideration  where  any  arms  are  in  posses- 
sion of  persons  notoriously  disaffected,  and  have 
been  stolen  or  otherwise  improperly  or  unlawfully 
acquired  from  persons  entrusted  with  them  for 
the  defence  of  the  Realm.    In  any  case,  I  should 
leave  it  to  the  persons  found  in  unlawful  posses- 
sion to  challenge  the  seizure,  on  the  ground  that 
no  such  necessity  existed."  The  Chief  Secretary, 
however,  adhered  to  the  view  that,  while  no  defi- 
nite evidence  existed  of  the  association  of  the 
seditious  organisation  with  the  enemy,  an  armed 
insurrection  was  improbable,  though  bomb  out- 
rages were  not  unlikely,  and  that  any  attempt  to 
suppress  and  disarm  the  organisation  would  pro- 
voke a  rising  which  might  otherwise  be  avoided 

Thus,  in  the  spring  of  1916,  the  rebel  military 
force  was  ready  for  action.  It  numbered  in  the 
whole  of  Ireland  some  sixteen  thousand  men,  of 
whom  about  three  thousand  were  in  Dublin,  and 
the  remainder  distributed  throughout  the 
branches  in  all  the  southern  provinces  and  in  the 
southern  counties  of  Ulster,  with  the  chief  strength 


ORGANISATION 


127 


in  the  provinces  concentrated  in  the  counties  of 
Cork,  Wexford  and  Galway.   The  disproportion 
between  the  rebels'  numbers  and  their  armament 
was  marked.     Shortly  before  the  rising  it  was 
estimated  by  the  military  and  police  authorities 
that  there  were  rather  more  than  a  thousand  rifles 
and  a  number  of  shot  guns,  revolvers  and  pistols 
in  Dublin,  and  rather  less  than  two  thousand  rifles 
and  a  number  of  other  firearms  in  the  provinces. 
The  number  of  rifles,  especially  in  Dublin,  was 
subsequently  found  to  have  been  somewhat  under- 
estimated. The  rebels  in  Dublin,  besides,  brought 
into  action  three  machine  guns,  their  possession  of 
which  was  not  suspected  by  the  authorities.  Their 
store  of  ammunition  was  similarly  under-esti- 
mated. Bullets  were  expended  freely  by  the  rebels 
in  Dublin,  and  after  the  surrender  three  hundred 
and  sixty-five  thousand  rounds  were  captured. 
The  rebel  ammunition,  as  was  to  be  expected 
from  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was  collected 
and  produced,  was  of  a  highly  varied  character. 
Some  of  that  used  by  the  rebels  in  the  fighting  in 
Dublin  was  of  a  terrible  nature,  including  flat- 
nosed  bullets  and  split  bullets,  and  reverse  bullets 
were  also  found.  Buck-shot,  slugs  and  bombs  made 
out  of  workmen's  cans  were  employed  in  addition. 
The  proportion  of  home-made  to  service  and 
foreign  ammunition  was  considerable.  The  rebels, 
therefore,  in  respect  of  arms  and  especially  of 
ammunition,  were  by  no  means  ill-equipped.  Their 
armament   was,    however,    inadequate    to  the 
numbers  of  which,  given  an  ample  supply  of  arms, 
they  could  dispose.   It  was  insufficient  to  supply 
a  general  rising  throughout  the  country,  and  this 
deficiency  was  destined  to  prove  a  factor  of  capital 
importance  in  both  the  conception  and  execution 
of  the  rebel  plans. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  REBEL  PLANS 

The  military  plans  of  the  rebels  were  concerted 
in  close  association  with  the  agents  of  Germany. 
In  their  perfection,  as  in  all  earlier  parts  of  the 
negotiations,  the  entourage  of  the  German 
Embassy  at  Washington  played  a  conspicuous 
part.  Plans  of  Dublin  and  maps  of  various  Irish 
districts  discovered  after  the  rising  bore  internal 
evidences  of  German  draughtsmanship.  There 
was  immediately  after  the  Rebellion,  owing  to 
causes  which  will  appear  in  a  later  chapter,  a 
widespread  tendency  exhibited  in  the  Press  of 
the  United  Kingdom  to  belittle  the  gravity  of  the 
Rebellion  in  its  purely  military  aspect.  The 
Rebellion  of  1916  was,  in  fact,  the  best  conceived 
and,  up  to  a  certain  point,  the  best  executed  in 
the  whole  history  of  Irish  risings.  But  for  a  series 
of  accidents,  it  might  easily  have  confronted  not 
Ireland  alone,  but  the  whole  Kingdom,  with  the 
gravest  menace  that  it  had  so  far  encountered  in 
the  great  war.  It  is  true  that  the  Rebellion  was 
the  work  of  a  minority,  even  a  small  minority. 
It  is  also  true  that  there  existed  outside  that  small 
minority  a  larger  minority  in  which  the  movement 
was  capable  of  arousing  a  latent  sympathy ;  that 
in  Ireland,  of  all  countries  in  Europe,  nothing 
succeeds  like  success ;  and  that  such  a  measure  of 
success  as  the  rebel  plans  contemplated  would 
infallibly  have  attracted  support  outside  of  the 
actively  seditious  organisations.  This  measure  of 
success  the  rebel  leaders  had  a  right  to  expect ;  for 
their  plans,  concerted  with  Germany's  agents, 
displayed  a  strategic  instinct  of  a  high  order. 


THE  REBEL  PLANS  129 


Even  if  the  possibility  of  an  accession  to  the 
numerical  strength  of  the  rebels  is  left  out  of 
account,  the  armed  action  in  Ireland  of  the 
numbers  of  which  the  seditious  organisations  dis- 
posed constituted  in  itself,  when  that  strategic 
significance  of  Ireland  in  relation  to  the  war  which 
has  already  been  discussed  is  borne  in  mind,  a 
formidable  menace  to  the  security  of  the  State 
at  war. 

Thanks  to  the  chapter  of  accidents  which  inter- 
posed, those  numbers  did  not  actually  take  the 
field  against  the  forces  of  the  Crown.  The  Irish 
Volunteers  had  branches  throughout  every  part 
of  the  three  southern  provinces  and  in  some 
districts  of  Ulster.  The  rebel  plans  proposed, 
accordingly,  that  the  rising  should  be  general  and 
simultaneous  throughout  the  country.  Had  those 
plans  been  carried  fully  into  execution  the  history 
of  the  Rebellion  in  its  military  aspect  would  have 
been  very  different,  and  certainly  would  not  have 
been  comprised,  as  it  was  in  fact  comprised, 
within  the  brief  period  of  one  week.  Everything 
turned  upon  the  success  of  the  rising  in  the  pro- 
vinces, and  it  was  no  fault  of  the  rebel  leaders  that 
the  provincial  rising  issued  in  failure.  The  rebel 
plans  proposed  the  seizure  by  a  surprise  stroke  of 
the  capital — the  Government  buildings,  the 
strategic  approaches  to  the  city,  the  nodal  points 
of  communication,  physical  and  other — and  in 
this  it  was  largely  successful  at  the  outset.  This 
seizure  of  the  capital  city  of  Ireland,  however — 
the  only  part  of  the  scheme  of  operations  which 
was  put  fully  into  execution — was  only  one 
element  in  that  scheme,  and  it  depended  for  its 
ultimate  success  upon  other  factors.  It  required 
a  larger  rebel  force  than  was  immediately  avail- 
able, and  it  required  that  while  this  larger  force 
was  being  concentrated  the  forces  of  the  Crown 
should  be  prevented  from  a  rapid  and  effectual 


i 


130   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


intervention.  The  concentration  of  this  larger  force 
in  turn  depended  on  such  a  general  rising  through- 
out the  country  as  would  not  merely  put  the  Irish 
provinces  largely  in  rebel  hands,  but  would  also 
enable  surplus  rebel  troops  to  be  available  for  the 
reinforcement  of  the  bodies  holding  Dublin. 

In  both  its  offensive  and  its  defensive  aspects 
the  success  of  this  scheme  required  the  active  co- 
operation of  Germany.  Despite  months  of  secret 
preparation,  no  adequate  provision  existed  in  the 
country  for  the  extensive  arming  of  rebel  forces 
which  the  leaders'  plans  presumed.  All  their 
men  were  trained  to  some  extent  in  the  use  of 
arms ;  but  for  a  very  considerable  proportion  of 
these  men  no  arms  were  ready  to  hand.  This  de- 
ficiency was  to  be  supplied  from  overseas.  It  was 
the  function  of  the  Casement  expedition  which 
subsequently  sailed  from  Wilhelmshaven  for  the 
west  coast  of  Ireland  to  supply  it.  So  far  as 
operations  in  Ireland  itself  were  concerned,  arms 
were  the  essential  requirement  of  the  rebels  upon 
Germany.  They  would  have  been  assisted,  and 
were  to  have  been  assisted,  by  the  simultaneous 
landing  in  Ireland  of  a  small  force — a  couple  of 
battalions  with  the  "  Irish  Brigade "  as  their 
nucleus — of  German  troops.  Such  a  force  operat- 
ing under  mobile  conditions  in  the  hills  of  Kerry 
would  have  diverted  to  that  remote  region,  if  only 
for  the  reason  that  its  appearance  on  Irish  soil 
would  have  exercised  a  profound  moral  influence 
upon  the  British  public,  a  much  larger  body  of 
British  troops.  But  arms,  and  not  men,  were  the 
essential  requirement  of  the  rebels.  Elaborate 
arrangements  had  been  made  for  the  rapid  and 
systematic  distribution  throughout  the  South  and 
West  of  Ireland  of  the  arms  which  the  Casement 
expedition  was  to  land  on  the  coast  of  Kerry  near 
Tralee  on  the  morning  of  Good  Friday,  x\pril  21st. 

With  the  landing  of  those  arms  and  their  dis- 


THE  REBEL  PLANS  131 


tribution  the  chosen  moment  would  have  arrived 
for  the  full  development  of  concerted  operations 
by  the  rebels  and  the  naval  and  military  forces  of 
Germany.  The  capital  city  and  districts  at  once 
extensive  and  scattered  in  the  Irish  provinces 
would  have  been  in  rebel  hands.  The  forces  of  the 
Crown  present  in  Ireland  would  have  been 
altogether  inadequate  to  engage  with  them  with 
any  prospect  of  success;  for  the  considered  policy 
of  the  military  authorities,  so  far  as  their  advisers 
in  the  civil  Irish  Government  had  led  them  to 
envisage  at  all  the  emergency  of  an  Irish  rising, 
was  not  to  augment  the  military  garrison  in 
Ireland,  but  to  hold  forces  available  in  Great 
Britain  for  rapid  despatch  to  that  country  should 
occasion  for  their  employment  ever  arise.  Such  a 
general  rising  as  the  rebel  plans  contemplated, 
however,  would  have  made  a  draft  on  the  strength 
of  the  British  home  defence  forces  far  in  excess 
of  the  modest  provision  which  the  military  autho- 
rities had  ear-marked  for  Irish  purposes,  rather 
as  a  measure  of  precaution  than  with  any  serious 
expectation  that  an  emergency  would  require  the 
use  of  any  considerable  scale  of  British  troops  in 
Ireland.  Certainly  the  Irish  Government  had 
never  given  the  War  Office  any  reason  to  appre- 
hend that  forces  would  be  required  to  deal  with 
such  a  situation  as  would  have  arisen  in  Ireland 
if  the  rebel  plans  had  attained  their  full  fruition. 
In  the  situation  which  the  rebel  plans  presumed 
military  forces  from  Great  Britain  would  have 
been  engaged  throughout  Ireland  in  operations 
which,  alike  from  the  necessity  that  the  rebellion 
should  be  rapidly  suppressed  and  from  the  scope 
and  diversity  of  the  scenes  of  action,  would  have  in- 
volved the  employment  of  a  strength  so  large  as 
possibly  to  compromise  very  seriously  that  secure 
defence  of  Great  Britain  against  invasion  which 
it  was  the  function  of  the  home  defence  forces  to 


132   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


guarantee.  The  transport  and  supply  of  the  forces 
engaged  in  Ireland  would  have  required  simul- 
taneously for  their  protection  against  submarine 
attack  a  considerable  proportion  of  the  British 
naval  flotillas.  The  diversion  to  this  service  of  a 
class  of  vessels  in  which  the  British  margin  of 
superiority  was  never  excessive  would  have  im- 
paired gravely  the  capacity  of  the  flotillas  to  dis- 
charge in  the  North  Sea  area  their  prime  function 
of  observing  the  movements  of  the  enemy's  naval 
forces  and  the  screening  the  movements  of  the 
Grand  Fleet. 

On  land  and  by  sea  alike,  therefore,  a  rising 
general  throughout  Ireland — possibly  assisted  by 
the  landing  in  Ireland  of  such  a  small  German 
force  as  might  hope  in  its  passage  under  neutral 
colours  to  elude  the  vigilance  of  the  British  naval 
patrol — would  have  weakened  very  appreciably 
the  forces  available  for  the  protection  of  Great 
Britain  against  invasion.  Of  this  situation  the 
Germans  would  then  have  taken  advantage  to  de- 
liver, by  a  combined  operation,  a  stroke  against 
the  East  Coast  of  Great  Britain  in  the  most  favour- 
able circumstances  which  could  arise  for  throwing 
ashore  an  invading  army  or,  at  least,  a  raiding 
force  in  considerable  strength. 

All  that,  in  fact,  emerged  into  actuality  in  the 
concerted  plan  of  campaign  in  so  far  as  it  involved 
the  co-operation  of  the  naval  and  military  forces 
of  Germany  was  the  hasty  and  ineffective  raid 
which  on  Wednesday,  April  26th — two  days  after 
the  outbreak  in  Ireland,  when  the  movement  of 
troops  to  Ireland  was  in  full  process  of  develop- 
ment— was  made  by  a  squadron  of  fast  German 
cruisers  upon  Lowestoft  and  Great  Yarmouth.  It 
was  already  apparent  by  this  time  that  the 
Rebellion  in  Ireland  was  doomed  to  early  collapse, 
and  it  is  unlikely  that  this  raid  was  intended  to 
be  the  first  phase  in  a  series  of  grand  operations 


THE  REBEL  PLANS 


133 


designed  for  the  invasion  of  England,  or  that  it 
had  any  more  serious  purpose  than  to  contribute 
to  that  temporary  demoralisation  of  British  public 
opinion  which,  in  the  German  view,  the  Irish 
Rebellion  would  induce.  Its  undertaking,  how- 
ever,  alter  a  very  prolonged  period  of  inaction  by 
the  German  naval  forces  since  the  encounter  off 
the  Dogger  Bank  in  January  1915  had  shown  that 
the  policy  of  raids  was  at  once  expensive  and  un- 
profitable, supplies  corroborative  evidence  that  in 
the  plans  concerted  between  the  rebels  and 
Germany  the  active  co-operation  of  Germany  by 
action  across  the  North  Sea  was  contemplated. 
Had  those  plans  not  miscarried  there  would  have 
arisen  that  situation  which  German  military 
writers  have  openly  discussed  in  their  considera- 
tion of  the  prospects  in  an  Anglo-German  or 
general  European  war.  Great  Britain  would  have 
had  to  contemplate  the  fact,  or  at  least  the  immin- 
ent peril,  of  invasion  from  the  east  with  all  the 
embarrassment,  the  confusion,  and  the  dissipation 
of  strength  involved  in  the  exposure  of  her 
strategic  flank  upon  the  Atlantic  in  the  west. 

It  will  be  obvious  from  the  fore^oin^  considera- 
tions  that  the  factor  of  capital  importance  in  the 
German-rebel  plan  of  campaign  was  the  landing 
in  Ireland  of  a  great  quantity  of  arms  and  am- 
munition. Without  that  landing  there  could  be 
no  wholesale  arming  of  that  very  considerable 
proportion  of  the  rebel  forces  which  was  at 
present  unequipped.  Without  such  a  wholesale 
arming  there  could  be  no  general  rising  through- 
out the  country.  Without  such  a  general  rising 
there  could  be  no  very  large  diversion  to  Ire- 
land of  military  and  naval  forces.  Without 
such  a  very  large  diversion  of  those  forces 
to  Ireland  there  could  be  no  favourable  oppor- 
tunity for  a  German  stroke  by  a  combined 
operation  at  the  East  Coast  of  Great  Brita***11 


134   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


The  success  of  the  grandiose  scheme  concerted 
between  Germany  and  the  rebels;  the  gathering 
of  the  fruits  of  long  months  of  intrigue  in  Berlin, 
in  Washington  and  in  Dublin ;  the  creation  of  the 
supreme  opportunity  in  the  war  for  the  defeat  of 
Great  Britain,  depended  wholly,  in  the  ultimate 
analysis,  upon  the  running,  in  a  lonely  spot  upon 
the  West  Coast  of  Ireland,  of  a  cargo  of  arms. 
The  history  of  the  Irish  Rebellion  of  1916  provides 
another  instance  of  the  ridiculously  trivial  inci- 
dents upon  which  the  destiny  of  Empires  so  often 
turns.  As  in  the  great  war  in  its  wider  issues  the 
crucial  moment,  decisive  of  the  final  issue  of  the 
campaigns  despite  all  their  subsequent  vicissi- 
tudes, is  to  be  discovered  in  the  battle  of  che 
Marne — it  might  almost  be  said  in  the  fleet  of 
taxi-cabs  whose  employment  for  transport  pur- 
poses secured  that  Allied  victory — so  in  this  Irish 
Rebellion  which  was  an  integral  incident  in  the 
great  war  the  crucial  moment,  decisive  of  its  final 
issue,  is  to  be  discovered  in  the  interception  of  the 
arms  ship  which  was  to  have  landed  its  cargo, 
with  Sir  Roger  Casement,  on  the  coast  of  Kerry 
upon  the  morning  of  Good  Friday. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  EVE  OF  EEBELLION 

The  expedition  upon  which  so  much  depended 
left  Wilhelmshaven  on  April  12th.  On  the  pre- 
ceding day  Casement  had  been  embarked  in  a 
submarine  with  two  companions.  One  of  these 
was  a  man  named  Bailey,  a  private  of  the  Royal 
Irish  Rifles,  who,  rejoining  as  a  reservist  on  the 
outbreak  of  the  war,  went  out  with  the  first  Ex- 
peditionary Force  and  was  taken  prisoner  during 
the  retreat  from  Mons  in  September  1914.  With 
other  Irish  prisoners  he  was  interned  in  the  camp 
at  Limberg,  where,  in  the  spring  of  1915,  he  re- 
sponded to  Casement's  appeal  for  recruits  for  the 
"  Irish  Brigade/'  in  which  he  was  given  the  rank 
of  sergeant.  Towards  the  end  of  March  1916  he 
was  sent  to  Berlin  to  a  school  of  instruction  in 
the  use  of  explosives.  In  this  place  he  had  as  a 
fellow-student  the  same  Monteith  who  had  earlier 
been  employed  in  Ireland  as  an  organiser  of  the 
Volunteers.  These  two  men  sailed  with  Case- 
ment from  Wilhelmshaven  in  the  submarine.  In 
company  with  the  submarine  there  sailed  a 
captured  Wilson  liner,  rechristened  the  Aud. 

This  vessel  was  disguised  as  a  timber  ship,  with 
a  forged  manifest  of  such  a  cargo,  and  flew  the 
Norwegian  flag ;  the  Norwegian  colours  were  also 
painted  on  her  sides.  She  carried  a  concealed 
cargo  of  twenty  thousand  rifles,  ten  machine  guns, 
a  million  rounds  of  ammunition  and  a  considerable 
quantity  of  explosive  and  fire  bombs.  A  slight 
accident  to  the  submarine  immediately  after  start- 
ing compelled  her  to  put  into  Heligoland  for 
repairs.    The  expedition  restarted  before  dawn 


136   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


on  the  19th  April.  Hugging  the  Danish  and  Nor- 
wegian coast  closely,  it  proceeded  to  make  the 
north-about  passage  by  way  of  the  Shetland 
Islands.  North  of  the  Shetlands  the  And  was 
challenged  by  a  patrol  cruiser,  but  was  permitted 
to  proceed. 

The  expedition  arrived  off  the  south-west  coast 
of  Ireland  during  the  night  of  April  20th-21st,  by 
which  time  the  authorities  were  fully  advised  of 
its  pending  appearance.  The  three  passengers  in 
the  submarine,  Casement,  Bailey  and  Monteith, 
were  put  off  in  a  collapsible  boat  to  land  on  the 
sands  of  Ardfert  about  2  o'clock  on  the  morning 
of  Good  Friday.  It  was  very  rough  weather  and 
the  boat  capsized  in  the  surf.  The  three  men, 
however,  were  able  to  wade  ashore.  They  recovered 
from  their  swamped  boat  three  Mauser  pistols, 
ammunition,  a  flash  lamp,  maps  and  a  large  green 
Irish  flag,  and  buried  these  articles  on  the  strand. 
Monteith  and  Bailey  proceeded  to  Tralee  to  meet 
the  local  leader  of  the  Volunteers,  while  Casement 
remained  near  the  place  of  landing  in  a  rath 
known  as  MacKenna's  Fort.  From  Tralee,  although 
the  police  were  on  the  watch  for  the  conspirators, 
Monteith  disappeared,  and,  after  remaining  in 
hiding  during  the  period  of  the  rebellion,  sub- 
sequently made  good  his  escape  from  Ireland. 

This  incident  provided  a  curious  instance  of  the 
manner  in  which  the  rebellions  of  1798  and  1916, 
while  they  differed  widely  in  essentials,  bore 
marked  resemblance  in  point  of  detail.  In  1798 
Wolfe  Tone,  like  Casement  in  1916,  negotiated 
with  the  enemies  of  Great  Britain  in  time  of  war, 
and,  like  Casement,  he  approached  the  shores  of 
Ireland  in  an  enemy  ship,  hoping  to  help  a  re- 
bellion. Tone,  like  Casement,  was  accompanied 
by  two  other  rebel  agents,  and  in  his  case,  as  in 
that  of  Casement,  one  of  these  companions  eluded 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  REBELLION  137 


observation  and  escaped.  It  is  not  often  that  his- 
tory repeats  itself  in  details  so  minute. 

From  Tralee  Bailey  returned  to  the  rath  near 
Ardfert,  and  here  he  and  Casement  were  arrested. 
Upon  Casement  was  found  a  code  consisting  of 
such  contemplated  messages  as  the  following: — 
"  Wait  further  instructions/'  "  Wait  further  op- 
portunity," "  Send  agent  at  once,"  "  Please 
answer  by  cablegram,"  "  Railway  communications 
have  been  stopped/5  "  Further  ammunition  is 
needed,"  "  How  many  rifles  will  you  send  us  ?  " 
"  Will  you  send  plans  about  landing?"  "  Cannons 
with  plenty  of  ammunition  are  needed,"  "  Send 
more  explosives,"  "  Send  a  vessel  if  possible." 
These  were  the  contemplated  communications  re- 
quired to  develop  the  situation  in  Ireland.  Case- 
ment and  Bailey,  after  their  examination  at  Ard- 
fert, were  at  once  removed  with  all  possible 
secrecy  to  Dublin,  whence  they  were  promptly 
forwarded  to  London,  and  there  lodged  in  the 
Tower  to  await  their  trial  for  high  treason. 

On  June  29th  Casement  was  found  guilty  and 
sentenced  to  death,  after  making  an  eloquent  and 
impassioned  speech  from  the  dock  which  will  be 
found  elsewhere  in  this  volume.*  Against  Bailey, 
in  consideration  of  the  fact  that  he  joined  the 
Irish  Brigade  only  in  order  to  escape  from  Ger- 
many, the  Crown  entered  a  nolle  prosequi,  and  he 
was  discharged.  The  conviction  of  Casement  was 
upheld  by  the  Court  of  Criminal  Appeal,  and, 
despite  numerous  petitions  for  his  reprieve,  he 
was  hanged  in  Pentonville  on  August  3rd. 

Meanwhile  the  Aud,  with  her  cargo  of  arms, 

*  Appendix  C.  It  should  be  mentioned  here  that,  after 
Casement's  arrest,  there  grew  up  in  Ireland  a  legend  that 
his  mission  was  not  to  assist,  but  to  stop,  the  Rebellion.  A 
statement  to  this  effect  was  attributed  to  Casement  himself ; 
but  no  such  plea  was  urged  in  his  defence  at  the  trial. 


138   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


after  lying  at  anchor  inshore  while  the  Casement 
party  were  being  disembarked  from  the  submarine, 
proceeded  in  the  early  morning  of  Good  Friday 
under  slow  steam  for  Fenit,  near  Tralee,  where 
her  cargo  was  to  be  -discharged  by  night.  En  route 
she  was  overhauled  and  challenged  by  His 
Majesty's  sloop  Bluebell,  patrolling  the  Kerry 
coast.  The  Bluebell  hoisted  a  signal  demanding  the 
suspicious  vessel's  name  and  destination.  The 
vessel  replied  that  she  was  the  Aud  of  Bergen  for 
Genoa,  The  captain  of  the  Bluebell  ordered  her 
to  follow  into  harbour.  As  the  Aud  remained 
without  moving  when  the  Bluebell  went  ahead  a 
shot  was  fired  across  her  bows,  and  she  then 
signalled  "  What  am  I  to  do?"  and  was  again 
ordered  to  follow.  This  she  did  without  fur- 
ther trouble  until  the  following  morning,  when 
the  two  vessels  in  company  were  off  Queens- 
town.  Near  the  Daunt  Rock  Lightship  the  Blue- 
bell headed  for  harbour,  but  the  Aud  stopped. 
The  Bluebell  then  went  back  about  a  cable's  length 
and  saw  a  small  cloud  of  white  smoke  issuing 
from  the  after-hold.  At  the  same  time  the  Aud 
broke  the  German  naval  ensign  from  the  mast, 
and  two  boats  were  launched,  one  from  each  side. 
The  Aud's  crew,  realising  that  their  attempt  had 
failed,  and  wishing  to  save  their  cargo  from  cap- 
ture by  the  British,  had  scuttled  their  ship.  The 
Bluebell  went  round  across  the  bows  and  picked 
up  the  occupants  of  two  boats,  who  had  hoisted 
a  flag  of  truce.  They  were  found  to  be  three 
officers  and  twenty  men  of  the  German  Navy,  and 
were  taken  prisoners.  The  A  ud  sank  in  twenty 
fathoms  of  water  almost  immediately  afterwards. 
So  ended  ingloriously  the  expedition  on  whose 
successful  mission  depended  the  realisation  of  all 
the  larger  hopes  which  Germany  and  her  con- 
federates in  Ireland  and  the  United  States  had 
based  upon  the  Rebellion. 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  REBELLION  139 


Until  this  event  occurred  the  Irish  Government 
had  no  definite  evidence  of  association  between  the 
seditious  organisations  in  Ireland  and  the  German 
Government.  The  Casement  expedition,  how-- 
ever,  satisfied  its  members  that  such  association 
existed,  and  that  the  situation  in  Ireland  was 
further  advanced  and  very  much  more  dangerous 
than  they  had  hitherto  believed.  They  realised 
that  the  landing  of  the  arms  was  to  have  been  the 
signal  for  the  rising;  that,  in  spite  of  the  mis- 
carriage of  the  expedition,  the  rebel  leaders  might 
nevertheless  decide  to  strike;  and  that  the  time 
for  action  against  them  had  come.  A  meeting  of 
the  Irish  Executive,  attended  by  the  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant, Lord  Wimborne,  the  Under  Secretary,  Sir 
Mathew  Nathan,  and  military  officers  representing 
Major-General  Friend,  Commanding-in-Chief  the 
Forces  in  Ireland,  who  was  away  in  London  on 
leave,  was  held  on  Saturday,  April  22nd,  as  soon 
as  the  news  of  the  interception  of  the  Casement 
expedition  was  received  at  Dublin  Castle.  It  was 
finally  decided  to  raid  the  rebel  headquarters,  to 
arrest  all  the  leaders,  and  to  seize  any  stores  of 
arms  which  could  be  found.  Warrants  for  the 
arrests  and  authority  for  the  other  operations 
were  signed  by  the  Lord  Lieutenant.  It  was 
appreciated,  however,  that  the  execution  of  these 
steps  was  likely  to  involve  some  fighting.  An 
overwhelming  display  of  force  was  desirable. 
Time  was  required  to  concentrate  troops.  It  was 
agreed,  therefore,  to  postpone  action  until  later 
in  Easter  week. 

It  is  probable  that  this  decision  of  the  Irish 
Executive  almost  immediately  came  to  the  know- 
ledge of  the  rebel  leaders,  whose  intelligence  de- 
partment, thanks  largely  to  the  fact  that  the 
Government  offices  were  full  of  their  sympathisers, 
was  at  all  times  singularly  well-informed.  By 
this  channel  also  the  rebel  headquarters  is  likely 


140    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


to  have  received  its  first  intelligence  of  the  inter- 
ception of  the  Casement  expedition.  The  leaders 
in  Dublin  had  despatched  to  Kerry  in  a  motor- 
car three  agents  who  were  to  meet  Casement, 
attend  the  disembarkation  of  the  arms,  supervise 
the  first  stages  of  their  distribution  through  the 
southern  and  western  counties,  and  subsequently 
report  in  person  at  headquarters.  An  accident 
which  bef  ell  this  motor-car  party  was  not  without 
a  serious  effect  on  the  rebel  plans.  Upon  its  arrival 
in  Kerry  the  party  gathered  some  information  of 
the  fate  of  the  expedition,  and,  without  waiting 
to  make  other  arrangements  for  the  transmission 
of  the  news  to  Dublin,  started  back  at  breakneck 
speed  to  report.  Driving  furiously  in  the  dark, 
the  party  pitched  over  the  side  of  the  road  into 
one  of  the  long  and  narrow  arms  of  the  sea  which 
penetrate  inland  from  the  coast  of  Kerry,  and  all 
the  occupants  of  the  motor-car,  with  the  exception 
of  the  chauffeur,  were  killed.  News  of  the  inter- 
ception of  the  Casement  expedition,  therefore, 
reached  somewhat  belatedly  the  rebel  head- 
quarters, in  anxious  session  in  Dublin  awaiting 
the  information  of  its  arrival  which  would  enable 
them  to  complete  their  pre-arranged  plans  for  the 
Rebellion  and  issue  the  orders  for  their  execution. 

The  report  of  the  expedition's  miscarriage, 
arriving  almost  on  the  eve  of  Easter  Monday, 
produced  in  the  rebel  council  of  war  a  sharp 
division  of  opinion.  A  large  section  of  the 
leaders  argued  strongly  against  the  insurrection. 
They  urged,  we  may  suppose,  that,  with  the 
miscarriage  of  the  Casement  expedition,  the 
basis  on  which  the  whole  plan  of  campaign 
reposed  had  been  swept  away.  There  was  no 
hope  of  a  successful  rising  in  the  provinces 
in  default  of  the  necessary  arms.  There  was  no 
hope  of  preventing  a  rapid  concentration  in  great 
strength  of  British  troops  upon  Dublin,  where 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  REBELLION  141 


the  rebel  strength  immediately  available  would  be 
inadequate  to  hold  out  long  enough  to  give  oppor- 
tunity for  favourable  developments  in  the  country. 
Germany,  realising  that  the  plans  in  Ireland  had 
gone  awry,  would  make  no  serious  effort  to  fulfil 
her  share  in  the  contract  by  a  combined  operation 
against  the  East  Coast  of  Great  Britain.  They  de- 
clined to  believe  the  report  that  the  Irish  Govern- 
ment had  decided  to  suppress  the  organisation  by 
force  of  arms,  and  argued  from  the  past  record  of 
that  Government  that,  if  no  overt  action  was  now 
taken  by  the  Volunteers,  the  authorities  would 
continue  to  refrain  from  forcible  measures.  They 
recalled  the  issue,  towards  the  end  of  March,  of  the 
manifesto  by  the  council  of  the  Irish  Volunteers. * 
From  the  refusal  of  the  Irish  Government  a 
month  earlier  to  take  action  upon  this  public 
challenge,  the  Sinn  Fein  section  of  the  rebel 
leaders  argued  that  the  Government  would  not 
now  attempt  to  disarm  the  Volunteers  or  to  en- 
force any  other  measure  which,  as  it  had  been 
warned,  would  involve  a  collision  in  arms  between 
the  Volunteers  and  the  forces  of  the  Crown.  On 
all  these  counts  they  urged  that,  since  with  the 
miscarriage  of  the  Casement  expedition  favour- 
able opportunity  for  the  Rebellion  was  gone,  the 
leaders  should  hold  their  hand  and  await  the 
possible  development  of  another  occasion. 

Upon  the  other  hand,  another  section  of  the 
leaders,  and  especially,  as  is  believed,  the  labour 
element,  urged  immediate  action.  We  may  con- 
ceive them,  with  all  the  eloquence  and  passion 
at  their  command,  as  arguing,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  miscarriage  of  the  Casement  expedition 
did  not  demolish  the  basis  of  the  plan  of  cam- 
paign so  completely  as  the  other  side  represented. 
A  rising,  even  if  not  upon  the  general  scale  con- 
templated in  that  plan,  was  still  possible.  It 

*  See  Chap.  III. 


142    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


should  still  attain  a  considerable  measure  of 
success.  If  it  did,  the  country  would  rally  round 
Republic,  and  Germany  might  still  find  opportu- 
nity to  play  her  allotted  part.  In  a  word,  the 
probable  development  of  events  in  the  new  situa- 
tion was  an  open  question,  and  they  were  justified 
in  putting  their  fortunes  to  the  test.  In  the  next 
place,  if  they  did  not  take  the  offensive  in  the  cir- 
cumstances, granted  even  that  those  circumstances 
were  less  favourable  than  they  had  anticipated, 
in  which  they  found  themselves,  they  would  be 
forced  to  defensive  action  in  circumstances  much 
less  favourable.  The  Casement  expedition  must 
convince  the  Irish  Government  that  a  definite 
association  existed  between  the  Volunteers  and 
Germany,  and  that  Government  would  certainly 
proceed  as  soon  as  it  could  to  the  forcible  suppres- 
sion of  the  organisation.  At  the  moment,  how- 
ever, it  was  not  in  a  position  to  do  so.  The  Chief 
Secretary  and  Major-General  Friend,  the  General 
Officer  Commanding  the  Forces  in  Ireland,  were 
both  away  in  England,  and  troops  were  not  im- 
mediately available.  After  the  interception  of  the 
Casement  expedition  the  authorities  would  pro- 
bably believe  that  a  rising  need  not  be  appre- 
hended. In  a  few  days,  however,  the  situation 
would  be  completely  changed.  Troops  would  be 
concentrated  upon  Dublin,  and  the  measures  of 
suppression  upon  which  the  Government  had  de- 
cided would  be  put  into  force.  In  a  word,  it  was 
a  question  of  striking  at  once  or  not  being  able  to 
strike  at  all.  It  was  better  in  any  case,  this  sec- 
tion of  the  leaders  urged,  to  strike  for  the  liberties 
of  Ireland,  whatever  the  result,  than  to  permit 
the  movement  to  expire  in  impotence. 

The  exact  issue  of  this  discussion  at  the  rebel 
council  on  Saturday,  April  22nd,  is  doubtful.  One 
of  two  things  happened.  Either  the  leaders  sus- 
pended their  final  decision  until  the  following 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  REBELLION  143 


day,  or  reached  a  tentative  and  inconclusive  de- 
cision which  was  capable  of  being  misinterpreted, 
or  was  wilfully  misinterpreted,  by  that  section  of 
the  council  which  was  strongly  opposed  to  imme- 
diate insurrection.  In  either  case  a  development 
of  capital  importance  now  occurred.  In  prepara- 
tion for  the  rising,  it  had  been  arranged  that  the 
Volunteers  were  to  assemble  on  Easter  Sunday  for 
manoeuvres,  in  which  all  the  branches  of  the  or- 
ganisation throughout  Ireland  were  to  take  part. 
This  mobilisation  of  the  rebel  forces — for  such,  in 
fact,  it  was  intended  to  be — was  suddenly  can- 
celled by  the  following  order  signed  by  John 
MacNeiU  on  Saturday  night,  and  published  in 
the  next  day's  Sunday  papers  : — "  Owing  to  the 
very  critical  position,  all  orders  given  to  Irish 
Volunteers  for  to-morrow,  Easter  Sunday,  are 
hereby  rescinded,  and  no  parades,  marches,  or 
other  movements  of  Irish  Volunteers  will  take 
place.  Each  individual  Volunteer  will  obey  this 
order  strictly  in  every  particular." 

If,  by  the  issue  of  this  order,  MacXeill  hoped 
and  intended  to  force  the  hands  of  his  colleagues 
in  the  rebel  council  and  compel  them  to  abstain 
from  immediate  action,  he  was  not  successful  in 
his  purpose.  Another  meeting  of  the  leaders  was 
held  on  Sunday,  April  23rd.  It  was  now  recog- 
nised that  the  plans  for  a  general  and  simultan- 
eous rising,  already  impaired  by  the  miscarriage 
of  the  Casement  expedition,  had  gone  altogether 
by  the  board  with  the  issue  of  MacNeill's  order.  It 
was  now  too  late  to  attempt  to  cancel  this  order  or 
confirm  the  original  orders  without  creating  the 
utmost  confusion.  The  rebel  council  seems  to  have 
been  inclined  to  submit  to  the  logic  of  events  and 
abandon  the  whole  enterprise;  but  the  elements 
which  threw  their  influence  in  this  direction  were 
finally  overborne  by  the  impetuous  labour  element. 
The  arguments  which  it  had  advanced  on  the 


144    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


previous  day  were  presumably  recapitulated.  The 
contemplated  provincial  rising  could  not  now  take 
place  simultaneously  with  the  rising  in  Dublin; 
but,  given  success  in  Dublin,  the  provincial  bodies 
of  Volunteers  would  quickly  fall  into  line. 
MacNeill's  order  cancelling  the  Easter  manoeuvres, 
if  it  had  gravely  deranged  the  plans,  had  at  least 
this  good  result — that  it  would  improve  the 
chances  of  the  rising  in  Dublin  by  throwing  the 
authorities  completely  off  their  guard.  The 
authorities  would  assume  that,  after  the  intercep- 
tion of  the  Casement  expedition,  the  enterprise 
had  been  abandoned  by  the  leaders,  and  would 
take  no  precautions  against  an  outbreak  the 
following  day,  Easter  Monday.  The  line  of  argu- 
ment at  the  rebel  council  which  attributed  this 
attitude  to  the  authorities  was,  as  the  event 
proved,  abundantly  justified;  they  were  thrown 
completely  off  their  guard,  and  took  no  precau- 
tions. Finally  the  argument  of  the  labour  element 
prevailed,  and,  by  a  small  majority,  the  council  of 
the  rebel  leaders  decided  upon  immediate  action. 

The  first  of  the  orders  necessary  to  make  this 
decision  operative  was  so  worded  as  to  confirm  the 
impression  which  it  was  calculated  the  issue  of 
MacNeill's  order  would  have  produced  upon  the 
authorities.  A  "  Dublin  Brigade  Order,"  dated 
Headquarters,  April  23rd,  was  published  in  the 
following  terms: — "  (1)  As  publicly  announced, 
the  inspection  and  manoeuvres  ordered  for  this  day 
are  cancelled.  (2)  All  Volunteers  are  to  stay  in 
Dublin  until  further  orders."  This  was  signed  by 
Thomas  MacDonagh,  Commandant,  and  counter- 
signed by  Edward  de  Valera.  It  was  not  until 
early  on  the  morning  of  Easter  Monday,  April 
24th,  that  the  fateful  order  was  issued  which  set 
the  forces  of  rebellion  actually  in  motion.  It  ran 
as  follows:—"  Dublin  Brigade  Order,  H.Q.,  24th 
April,  1916.      (1)  The  four  city  battalions  will 


THE  EVE  OF  THE  REBELLION  145 


parade  for  inspection  and  route  march  at  10  a.m. 
to-day.  Commandants  will  arrange  centres.  (2) 
Pull  arms  and  equipments  and  one  day's  rations. " 
The  order  was  signed  by  Thomas  MacDonagh, 
Commandant,  and,  on  this  occasion,  counter- 
signed by  P.  H.  Pearse.  The  secret  had  been  well 
kept.  Very  few  Volunteers  outside  the  inner  circle 
of  the  leaders  shared  it.  Most  of  the  men  who 
assembled  under  the  instructions  of  their  Com- 
mandants at  the  various  centres  at  10  o'clock  on 
the  morning  of  Easter  Monday  entertained  no 
other  idea  than  that  they  were  to  take  part,  as 
announced,  in  a  parade  and  route  march;  and  it 
says  much  for  the  discipline  of  the  Volunteers  that 
they  obeyed  loyally  and  with  alacrity  the  summons 
of  the  leaders  which  called  them  at  high  noon  to 
engage  in  armed  rebellion  against  the  King. 

It  was  the  lack  of  premeditation  in  the  enter- 
prise which,  as  the  next  chapter  will  show,  secured 
its  first  facile  success,  and  the  same  cause  pro- 
duced its  early  and  complete  collapse.  The  Rebel- 
lion, in  the  circumstances  in  which  the  leaders 
decided  to  strike,  was  foredoomed  to  rapid  failure 
from  the  outset.  They  could  not  count  in  Dublin 
upon  forces  sufficient  for  their  contemplated  task — 
the  effective  seizure  of  the  capital  city  of  Ireland. 
Their  forces  were  insufficient  actually  and  still 
less  sufficient  relatively  to  the  strength  of  the 
forces  of  the  Crown  which  must  rapidly  be  arrayed 
against  them.  The  provincial  rising  upon  which 
they  reckoned  both  to  divert  those  forces  from  Dub- 
lin and  to  reinforce  their  hold  upon  the  capital 
could  not  be  other  than  sporadic,  uncoordinated, 
and  ineffective.  The  prompt  and  decisive  mea- 
sures taken  for  the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion  in 
Dublin,  which  acted  as  an  effectual  deterrent  else- 
where; the  military  precautions  at  once  put  into 
force  in  some  other  parts  of  the  country ;  the  con- 
fusion and  derangement  produced  by  MacNeill's 


E 


146    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


order  countermanding  the  Easter  manoeuvres ;  the 
miscarriage  of  the  Casement  expedition — these 
causes,  and  the  last  most  of  all,  conspired  to  render 
largely  abortive  that  provincial  rising  upon  which 
so  much  in  the  plans  concerted  between  the  rebels 
and  Germany  depended.  The  only  element  in  those 
comprehensive  and  elaborate  plans  which  was  put 
fully  into  execution  was  the  rising  in  Dublin;  and 
this  rising,  with  the  disappearance  from  the  plan 
of  the  other  elements  with  which  its  chances  of 
success  were  vitally  involved,  was  doomed  to  issue 
in  a  tragic  and  impotent  conclusion.  The  rebels 
struck  in  Dublin  with  a  strength  probably  inade- 
quate to  the  immediate  execution  of  their  task, 
and  certainly  inadequate  to  the  lengthy  prosecu- 
tion of  that  task. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE   REBELLION   IN  DUBLIN 

The  first  shot  in  the  Rebellion  was  fired  shortly 
after  noon  on  Easter  Monday,  April  24th.  It  was 
fired,  with  a  fine  sense  of  the  dramatic,  before  the 
seat  of  Imperial  authority  in  Ireland,  Dublin 
Castle,  and  killed  an  unarmed  policeman  on  duty. 
That  shot  was  the  signal  which  set  in  motion 
various  bodies  of  men  numbering  in  the  aggregate 
rather  less  than  three  thousand.  One  of  these 
bodies  at  once  rushed  and  occupied  the  General 
Post  Office  in  Sackville  Street,  expelling  the  staff, 
some  members  of  which  were  in  league  with  the 
rebels.  At  the  Post  Office  was  established  the 
Headquarters  of  the  ' '  Provisional  Government  of 
the  Irish  Republic."  The  colours  of  the  Republic 
— a  tricolour  flag  of  green,  orange  and  white — 
were  flown  from  the  flag-staff  on  the  roof  of  the 
building,  and  on  the  door  was  posted  a  copy  of  the 
following  Proclamation : — 

Poblacht  Na  HEireann. 


THE  PROVISIONAL  GOVERNMENT 

OF  THE 

IRISH  REPUBLIC. 


TO  THE  PEOPLE  OF  IRELAND. 

Irishmen  and  Irishwomen !  In  the  name  of  God 
and  of  the  dead  generations  from  which  she 
receives  the  old  tradition  of  nationhood, 


148    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Ireland,  through  us,  summons  her  children 
to  her  flag,  and  strikes  for  her  freedom. 

Having  organised  and  trained  her  manhood 
through  her  secret  revolutionary  organi- 
sation, the  Irish  Republican  Brotherhood, 
and  through  her  open  military  organisa- 
tions, the  Irish  Volunteers  and  the  Irish 
Citizen  Army,  having  patiently  perfected 
her  discipline,  having  resolutely  waited  for 
the  right  moment  to  reveal  itself,  she  now 
seizes  that  moment,  and  supported  by  her 
exiled  children  in  America  and  by  gallant 
allies  in  Europe,  but  relying  in  the  first  on 
her  own  strength,  she  strikes  with  full  con- 
fidence of  victory.  We  declare  the  right  of 
the  people  of  Ireland  to  the  ownership  of 
Ireland,  and  to  the  unfettered  control  of 
Irish  destinies,  to  be  sovereign  and  indefea- 
sible. The  long  usurpation  of  that  right 
by  a  foreign  power  and  government  has  not 
extinguished  the  right,  nor  can  it  ever  be 
extinguished  except  by  the  destruction  of 
the  people.  In  every  generation  the  Irish 
people  have  asserted  their  right  to  National 
freedom  and  sovereignty;  six  times  during 
the  past  three  hundred  years  they  have  as- 
serted it  in  arms.  Standing  on  that  funda- 
mental right  and  again  asserting  it  in  arms 
in  the  face  of  the  world,  we  hereby  proclaim 
the  Irish  Republic  as  a  Sovereign  Indepen- 
dent State,  and  we  pledge  our  lives  and  the 
lives  of  our  comrades  in  arms  to  the  cause 
of  its  freedom,  of  its  welfare,  and  of  its 
exaltation  among  the  nations. 

The  Irish  Republic  is  entitled  to,  and  hereby 
claims,  the  allegiance  of  every  Irishman  and 
Irishwoman.  The  Republic  guarantees  civil 
and  religious  liberty,  equal  rights  and  equal 
opportunities  to  all  its  citizens,  and  de- 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  149 


clares  its  resolve  to  pursue  the  happiness 
and  prosperity  of  the  whole  nation  and  of 
all  its  parts,  cherishing  all  the  children  of 
the  nation  equally,  and  oblivious  of  the 
differences  carefully  fostered  by  an  alien 
Government,  which  have  divided  a  minority 
from  the  majority  in  the  past. 

Until  our  arms  have  brought  the  opportune 
moment  for  the  establishment  of  a  per- 
manent National  Government,  representa- 
tive of  the  whole  people  of  Ireland,  and 
elected  by  the  suffrages  of  all  her  men  and 
women,  the  Provisional  Government,  here- 
by constituted,  will  administer  the  civil 
and  military  affairs  of  the  Republic,  in 
trust  for  the  people. 

We  place  the  cause  of  the  Irish  Republic  under 
the  protection  of  the  Most  High  God,  Whose 
blessing  we  invoke  upon  our  arms,  and  we 
pray  that  no  one  who  serves  that  cause  will 
dishonour  it  by  cowardice,  inhumanity  or 
rapine.  In  this  supreme  hour  the  Irish 
nation  must,  by  its  valour  and  discipline, 
and  by  the  readiness  of  its  children  to  sacri- 
fice themselves  for  the  common  good,  prove 
itself  worthy  of  the  august  destiny  to  which 
it  is  called. 

Signed  on  behalf  of  the  Provisional  Government. 

Thomas  J.  Clarke. 

Sean  MacDearmada.  Thomas  MacDonagh. 
P.  H.  Pearse.  Eamonn  Ceannt. 

James  Connolly.         Joseph  Plunkett. 


This  striking  and  dignified  document,  nicely 
calculated  as  it  was  to  engage  the  support  of  such 
sections  of  the  people  of  Dublin  as  might  be 
sympathetic,  failed  completely  in  its  main  object. 


150    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


There  is  no  evidence  that  throughout  the  rising  any 
persons  other  than  those  already  identified  with 
the  conspiracy  took  any  active  part  in  the  Rebel- 
lion. We  may  conyeniently  consider  here  to  what 
extent  the  behaviour  of  the  rebels  vindicated  the 
sincerity  of  the  leaders'  prayer  that  no  one  who 
served  their  cause  should  "  dishonour  it  by 
cowardice,  inhumanity,  or  rapine."  Certainly  no 
charge  of  cowardice  could  lie  against  them.  They 
fought  for  a  week  against  hopeless  odds  with  a 
fine  courage,  and  the  number  which  remained  in 
arms  at  the  end  of  the  week,  when,  since  the 
majority  were  in  civilian  dress,  opportunities  for 
desertion  were  ample,  was  a  sufficient  tribute  to 
their  valour.  They  could  not  so  easily  be  acquitted 
of  the  charge  of  inhumanity.  One  Irish  party  has 
made  it  its  business  to  protest  that  their  fighting 
record  was  absolutely  clean,  and  the  other  to  assert 
that  it  was  utterly  foul.  The  truth  lay  somewhere 
between  these  two  extremes. 

On  the  first  day  of  the  rising,  any  wearer  of 
British  uniform,  soldier  or  policeman,  armed  or 
unarmed — and  many  soldiers  on  leave  or  conva- 
lescent were  in  the  city — ran  great  risk  in  moving 
about  the  streets.  It  is  not  suggested  that  there 
was  any  general  attack  with  intent  to  kill  upon  the 
unsuspecting  police  and  military :  in  some  cases 
the  representatives  of  the  Imperial  authority  were 
unmolested;  in  other  cases  they  were  taken 
prisoners.  Again  in  further  cases  the  excuse  was 
offered  that  the  orders  of  the  rebel  sentries  were 
disobeyed ;  but  Dublin,  it  should  be  remembered, 
was  scarcely  aware  of  the  outbreak  of  hostilities 
until  the  afternoon  of  the  first  day.  And  such  an 
act  as  the  shooting  from  ambush  at  a  body  of 
Veteran  Volunteers,  general  opinion  could  not  dis- 
tinguish from  sheer  murder.  A  considerable  num- 
ber of  civilians  were  shot  on  the  first  day  of  the 
rising ;  but  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  they  were 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  151 


shot  by  accident  and  not  deliberately.  In  this  con- 
nection some  distinction  may  be  drawn  between  the 
Irish  Volunteers  and  the  Citizen  Army.  The 
former  were  the  military  instrument  of  a  political 
idea,  the  latter  the  military  instrument  of  a  social 
challenge;  and  the  difference  in  theory  was  ex- 
hibited in  practice  to  some  extent  in  the  behaviour 
of  the  two  bodies  during  the  Rebellion.  Outrages 
occurred  which  the  signatories  of  the  Proclamation 
of  the  Provisional  Government  would  have  been  the 
last  to  excuse.  These  outrages  were  the  work  prin- 
cipally of  members  of  the  Citizen  Army.  The 
general  body  of  the  rebels  did  fight,  in  the  main,  a 
clean  fight.  Military  and  police  prisoners  were  not 
harshly  treated ;  the  Red  Cross  was  usually,  though 
not  always,  respected;  the  rebels'  own  ambulances 
and  nursing  service  ministered  on  occasion  to  the 
fallen  of  their  opponents. 

Xor  could  the  rebels  in  general  fairly  be  accused 
of  "  rapine."  A  great  amount  of  property  was 
taken  and  destroyed  during  the  Rebellion,  but 
again  there  is  a  distinction  to  be  drawn  between 
the  commandeering  and  the  mere  looting  of  this 
property.  In  the  majority  of  cases  where  property 
was  commandeered  by  rebel  bodies — the  peremp- 
tory holding-up  and  seizure  of  motor-cars  in  the 
streets  falls  into  a  different  category — receipts 
were  given  to  this  effect : — "  Commandeered  by 
Irish  Republic,  to  be  paid  for,  goods  to  the  value 

of   By  Order  of  the  Irish  Republican 

Government.''  No  mere  looting  for  the  sake  of 
gain,  as  distinct  from  the  commandeering  of 
articles  required  for  the  prosecution  of  their 
operations,  could  be  charged  against  the  rebels. 
As  instancing  their  punctilious  respect  for  the 
niceties  of  the  laws  of  war  in  some  cases,  it  is  on 
record  that  a  party  which  entered  a  house  in  order 
to  commandeer  material  for  supplying  a  hospital, 
on  being  informed  that  the  house  was  that  of  a 


152   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


foreign  Consular  representative,  at  once  left  it 
without  molesting  its  contents  and  with  ample 
apologies.  The  extensive  looting  which  did  occur 
upon  the  lapse  of  constituted  authority  was  the 
work,  not  of  the  rebels,  but  of  the  city  rabble.  It 
occurred  within  the  area  of  the  rebel  occupation, 
and  much  of  it  certainly  might  have  been  pre- 
vented if  the  rebels  had  chosen  to  prevent  it;  but 
it  is  intelligible  that  they  had  no  desire  to  multiply 
the  difficulties  of  their  position  by  coming  into 
conflict  with  the  looters,  and,  at  the  time  when 
the  looting  was  at  its  height,  they  were  fully 
occupied  with  more  serious  work  than  that  of 
attempting  to  suppress  it. 

The  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion  took  the  authori- 
ties completely  by  surprise.  Many  officers  of  the 
Dublin  garrison  were  absent  at  a  race  meeting  in 
the  vicinity;  the  troops,  inadequate  in  numbers 
to  resist  the  rebel  operations,  were  not  in  any  case 
effectively  disposed  for  action;  the  garrison  of 
Dublin  Castle  at  the  time  of  the  outbreak  mustered 
half  a  dozen  men  with  blank  cartridges.  The 
scattered  soldiers  and  police  were  at  once  with- 
drawn to  barracks  from  the  central  area  of  the 
city,  into  effective  occupation  of  which  the  rebels 
entered  without  encountering  serious  resistance. 
Their  chief  stronghold  was  established  in  the  dis- 
trict surrounding  the  General  Post  Office.  Here 
they  promptly  cut  all  the  telegraph  wires,  and  for 
the  rest  of  the  week  Dublin  was  completely  iso- 
lated from  the  outside  world  so  far  as  telegraphic 
communication  was  concerned.  The  rebels  com- 
mitted a  serious  blunder  in  neglecting  to  seize 
the  central  telephone  exchange.  This  was  pro- 
tected by  the  ruse  of  an  old  woman  who  told  the 
party  detailed  to  occupy  it  that  it  was  strongly 
held  by  troops.  It  was,  in  fact,  garrisoned  by 
nothing  more  formidable  than  twenty  girl 
operators,  who  stood  to  their  posts  with  a  fine 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  153 


courage  throughout  the  Rebellion.  The  mainten- 
ance of  telephonic  communication,  though  the 
wires  were  "  tapped "  by  the  rebels,  was  of  the 
first  importance  to  the  authorities  for  the  de- 
velopment of  measures  to  suppress  it.  By  this 
means  orders  for  reinforcements  were  despatched 
to  the  Curragh,  and  news  of  the  rising  was  sent  to 
the  Naval  Centre  at  Kingstown,  thence  to  be 
transmitted  by  wireless  telegraphy  to  the  Ad- 
miralty and  the  War  Office. 

The  General  Post  Office  was  put  in  a  state  of 
defence  by  the  rebels,  and  steps  were  taken  to 
seize  and  garrison  various  houses  at  the  corners 
of  the  streets  abutting  on  Sackville  Street  as  sup- 
porting defences,  while  the  streets  themselves 
were  barricaded.  Special  precautions  were  taken 
for  the  protection  of  the  Wireless  School  in  Sack- 
ville Street.  The  aerial  here  had  been  dismantled 
on  the  outbreak  of  war;  it  was  replaced  by  the 
rebels,  who  thus  maintained  wireless  communi- 
cation with  their  outlying  bodies  until  the  de- 
struction of  the  building  by  fire  on  Thursday, 
April  27th.  Simultaneously  a  body  of  the  Citizen 
Army,  under  the  command  of  Countess  Marcievicz, 
occupied  and  entrenched  St.  Stephen's  Green,  an 
ornamental  park  covering  an  extensive  grouping 
of  road  communications.  Other  bodies  occupied 
the  Four  Courts  and  Liberty  Hall,  the  head- 
quarters of  the  Citizen  Army,  flanking  on  the  right 
and  left  respectively  the  central  rebel  position  in 
the  Sackville  Street  area  facing  towards  the  river. 
Further  out  from  the  centre  of  the  city  other  bodies 
occupied  the  South  Dublin  Union,  Jacob's  Biscuit 
Factory,  and  Boland's  Mills  at  Ringsend.  Smaller 
parties  established  themselves  in  houses  all  about 
the  city  commanding  the  military  barracks  and 
along  the  routes  into  the  city  likely  to  be  used  by 
troops  taking  up  posts. 

Of  the  five  railway  stations  in  Dublin,  three 


154   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


fell  into  the  hands  of  the  rebels.  The  exceptions 
were  Kingsbridge,  the  terminus  of  the  Great 
Southern  and  Western  Railway,  and  Amiens  Street, 
the  terminus  of  the  Great  Northern  Railway.  On 
the  north  side  of  the  city,  the  Broadstone  Station, 
the  terminus  of  the  Midland  Great  Western  Rail- 
way, though  not  actually  occupied,  was  within 
the  area  of  rebel  occupation;  and  on  the  south 
side  they  occupied  the  two  termini  of  the 
Dublin  and  South  Eastern  Railway,  Westland 
Row  and  Harcourt  Street;  the  latter,  however, 
was  found  unsuitable  for  defence,  and  was  almost 
immediately  evacuated.  Attempts  by  the  rebels  to 
destroy  the  railway  lines  some  miles  out  from  the 
termini  were  so  far  successful  that  for  the  rest  of 
the  week  no  trains  except  troop  trains  were  able  to 
reach  the  city.  Thus,  before  the  evening  of  the 
first  day  of  the  rising  the  whole  centre  of  the  city 
was  firmly  in  rebel  hands,  with  a  strong  cordon  of 
fortified  posts  in  the  suburbs. 

One  place  alone  in  the  central  area  of  the  city 
stood  like  a  rock  in  the  surge  of  revolution.  That 
place  was  Trinity  College.  The  Officers'  Training 
Corps,  the  strength  of  which  had  been  depleted  to 
a  minimum  by  the  enlistment  of  its  members  for 
foreign  service,  mustered  when  the  Rebellion  broke 
out  an  exiguous  garrison  of  some  thirty  rifles.  The 
senior  officer  in  charge,  Captain  Alton,  a  Senior 
Fellow  of  the  University,  at  once  took  steps  to 
organise  the  defence.  Stray  soldiers  were  sum- 
moned from  the  adjacent  streets  and  from  the 
Central  Soldiers'  Club  hard  by  the  College  to  re- 
inforce the  garrison;  these  included  some  "Anzac" 
sharpshooters .  The  gates  were  shut  and  barricaded ; 
sandbags  were  placed  in  the  windows  and  on  the 
parapets  of  the  roof;  the  scanty  strength  of  the 
garrison  was  distributed  to  the  best  advantage. 
It  was  at  once  decided  to  attempt  to  hold  only  the 
main  block  of  buildings  fronting  on  College  Green. 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  155 


From  the  rear  this  block  commanded  an  open  field 
of  fire  across  the  College  Park  to  Westland  Row 
Station,  which  was  held  in  force  by  the  rebels.  A 
picquet  was  maintained  in  the  Park  during  the 
night  close  enough  to  the  station  to  hear  the 
challenge  of  the  rebel  sentries  and  the  exchange 
of  the  password  "  Limerick;"  but  this  picquet 
was  withdrawn  before  dawn.  The  formidable 
appearance  of  the  preparations  made  for  defence 
deceived  the  rebels,  who  were  ignorant  of  the  real 
strength  of  the  garrison.  Trinity  College  was, 
perhaps,  the  one  important  place  in  the  city  where 
no  spy  was  present  to  reveal  the  dispositions.  The 
rebels  did  succeed  in  gaining  admittance  for  a  spy 
in  the  disguise  of  one  of  the  stray  soldiers 
summoned  to  reinforce  the  garrison,  but  he  was 
detected  before  he  was  able  to  escape  to  betray  its 
poverty.  In  these  circumstances  the  rebels  at- 
tempted no  attack.  The  garrison  exchanged  a 
brisk  fire  to  their  right  with  the  rebel  outposts  in 
the  Sackville  Street  area  across  the  river;  the 
sharpshooters  accounted  for  several  rebel  despatch 
riders  on  bicycles  who  sought  to  run  the  gauntlet 
of  their  fire;  the  shots  of  snipers  on  the  adjacent 
roofs  were  returned. 

The  possession  of  Trinity  College  by  loyal 
forces  was  a  factor  of  high  importance  in  the 
military  situation.  It  dominated  in  front  the 
Bank  of  Ireland,  and  Dame  Street  leading  up  to 
the  Castle;  on  the  right,  Westmoreland  Street 
leading  to  the  rebel  fortress  across  the  river;  on 
the  left  Grafton  Street  leading  up  to  St.  Stephen's 
Green — the  three  streets  which  contained  the  bulk 
of  the  banks,  insurance  offices,  and  great  business 
houses  of  South  Dublin.  To  the  command  of  these 
streets  by  the  garrison  of  Trinity  College  was 
chiefly  due  the  fact  that  this  area  was  spared  that 
visitation  of  fire  and  sack  which  later  devastated 
the  business  centre  of  Dublin  on  the  north  side  of 


156    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


the  river.  The  College  separated  the  rebel  centre 
at  the  General  Post  Office  from  the  outlying  bodies 
on  the  south  side.  The  garrison  held  the  commer- 
cial centre  of  the  city  in  trust  until  it  was  relieved 
later  in  the  week  by  the  arrival  of  the  troops,  when 
the  College  proved  a  valuable  point  d'appui  in  the 
development  of  operations  against  the  rebel  head- 
quarters in  Sackville  Street. 

Little  serious  fighting  occurred  on  the  first  day 
of  the  rising.  The  inadequate  strength  of  the 
•  troops  in  Dublin  limited  them  to  strictly  defined 
objectives  which  it  was  essential  to  secure.  The 
most  important  were  three — the  recovery  of  the 
magazine  in  the  Phoenix  Park,  where  the  rebels 
had  set  fire  to  a  quantity  of  ammunition;  the  de- 
fence of  the  docks  at  the  North  Wall,  where  the 
Custom  House,  dominating  Liberty  Hall,  had  to 
be  occupied  to  prevent  a  possible  attack  upon  the 
docks  from  that  quarter;  and,  finally,  the  relief 
of  Dublin  Castle.  The  Magazine  was  quickly  re- 
occupied  and  the  Custom  House  secured  by  night, 
in  both  cases  without  opposition.  The  relief  of  the 
Castle  was  a  more  serious  undertaking.  At  the 
outset  the  Castle,  which  was  almost  entirely  un- 
protected, would  have  fallen  an  easy  prey  to  the 
rebels ;  but  they  held  off,  suspecting  a  ruse,  until 
the  garrison  was  as  strongly  reinforced  as  to 
render  attack  hopeless.  Within  an  hour  after  the 
outbreak  some  two  hundred  soldiers  in  parties  had 
made  their  way  to  the  Castle,  meeting  with  some 
opposition  from  houses  and  barricades.  One  regi- 
ment on  its  way  to  the  Castle  later  was  held  up  by 
the  rebels  in  the  South  Dublin  Union ;  this  building 
was  attacked  and  partially  occupied.  In  the 
course  of  this  day's  operations  a  party  of  fifty 
cavalry,  with  two  officers,  convoying  ammunition 
from  the  docks,  was  surrounded  by  rebels;  but  it 
defended  its  convoy  for  three  days,  losing  one 
officer  killed,  and  the  second  wounded,  until  it 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  157 


was  relieved  by  improvised  armoured  cars — Scotch 
boilers  mounted  on  motor  lorries  and  loop-holed 
for  machine  guns  and  rifles — which  later  played 
an  important  part  in  the  street  fighting.  All  the 
first  day's  operations  were  of  a  purely  defensive 
character,  and  left  the  rebels  in  undisputed  posses- 
sion of  the  positions  which  they  had  seized. 

In  the  course  of  the  day  the  Lord  Lieutenant 
issued  a  Proclamation  to  the  effect  that  "  Whereas 
an  attempt,  instigated  and  designed  by  the  foreign 
enemies  of  our  King  and  Country,  to  foment 
Rebellion  in  Ireland,  and  thus  endanger  the 
safety  of  the  United  Kingdom,  has  been  made 
by  a  reckless,  though  small,  body  of  men,  who 
have  been  guilty  of  insurrectionary  acts  in  the 
City  of  Dublin,"  he  warned  all  his  Majesty's 
subjects  that  "  the  strictest  measures  are  being 
and  will  be  taken  for  the  prompt  suppression  of 
the  existing  disturbances,  and  the  restoration  of 
order."  The  Proclamation  enjoined  all  loyal  and 
law-abiding  citizens  to  abstain  from  any  acts  or 
conduct  which  might  interfere  with  the  action  of 
the  Executive  Government,  and,  in  particular, 
warned  them  of  the  danger  of  unnecessarily 
frequenting  the  streets  or  public  places,  or  of 
assembling  in  crowds.  On  the  following  day  an- 
other Proclamation  was  issued  placing  the  City 
and  County  of  Dublin  under  martial  law  for  the 
period  of  one  month,  and  on  Wednesday,  April 
26th,  three  further  Proclamations  were  issued,  of 
which  the  first  ordered  all  persons  to  keep  within 
their  houses  between  the  hours  of  7.30  p.m.  and 
5.30  a.m.,  unless  provided  with  a  written  permis- 
sion of  the  military  authorities;  the  second 
suspended  in  Ireland  Section  I.  of  the  Defence  of 
the  Realm  Act,  which  gave  the  right  to  a  British 
subject  charged  with  offence  to  be  tried  by  a  jury ; 
and  the  third  placed  the  whole  of  Ireland  for  a 
period  of  one  month  under  martial  law. 


158    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


During  the  whole  week  of  the  Rebellion  the 
social  and  economic  life  of  Dublin  lay  under  an 
almost  complete  paralysis.  The  business  centre 
of  the  city  was  the  theatre  of  military  operations. 
No  trams  ran  through  the  city ;  no  trains  ran  into 
it.  All  banks  were  closed.  The  gas  supply  was 
cut  off  as  a  measure  of  precaution,  and  citizens 
who  had  no  electric  light  installation  were  com- 
pelled to  fall  back  upon  lamps  and  candles.  There 
was  no  postal  service,  and  no  newspapers,  with 
one  exception.  This  was  the  Irish  Times,  which 
enjoyed  an  advantage  over  its  contemporaries  in 
that  it  possessed  a  suction  gas  plant  of  its  own, 
and  was  not  totally  dependent  for  its  machinery 
motive  power  upon  the  city  gas  supply.  Its  office 
lay  in  the  No  Man's  Land  between  Trinity  College 
and  Sackville  Street,  and  here,  in  a  state  of  siege, 
it  was  published  daily  during  the  rebellion  until 
Friday,  April  28th,  when  its  issue  was  suspended 
by  mechanical  difficulties  until  the  following 
Monday.  Dublin's  only  newspaper,  however — no 
newspaper  from  outside  was  able  to  circulate 
during  the  week — was  permitted  to  publish  no 
more  than  the  proclamations  and  the  official  com- 
muniques. Nobody  knew  how  serious  the  situa- 
tion might  be;  nobody  knew  the  state  of  the  pro- 
vinces. There  were  rumours  of  risings  here, 
there,  and  everywhere ;  of  large  rebel  forces  march- 
ing on  the  capital ;  of  a  German  landing  in  Kerry. 
But  the  better-class  people  of  Dublin  kept  their 
heads  and  went  their  unaccustomed  way  with  a 
nonchalance  not  generally  attributed  to  the  Irish 
temperament.  As  the  days  passed,  and  the  fight- 
ing spread,  and  the  great  fires,  whose  glare  was 
visible  for  miles  around,  broke  out,  though  there 
was  growing  strain,  there  was  always  calm,  and 
nothing  in  the  nature  of  panic. 

Among  the  upper  and  middle  classes  of  all 
creeds,    whatever    sentimental    sympathy  with 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  159 


sedition  there  might  have  been  before  the  Rebel- 
lion, there  was  none  during  its  progress.  These 
classes  generally  treated  the  troops  as  their  de- 
liverers from  a  regime  of  anarchy.  They  gave  the 
soldiers  from  England  a  welcome  which  vastly 
surprised  these  unfamiliar  men,  who  imagined  at 
the  outset  that  every  inhabitant  of  the  city  was  a 
potential  enemy.  Food  was  short  ;  but  when  re- 
inforcements— railed  across  England,  packed  in 
transports  across  the  Channel,  and  tramping  into 
the  city,  to  be  thrown  almost  immediately  upon 
their  arrival  in  the  last  stages  of  exhaustion  into 
desperate  street  fighting  of  the  most  hellish  kind- 
reached  the  suburbs,  citizens  cheerfully  surren- 
dered to  the  soldiers  the  last  square  meal  which 
they  had  in  immediate  prospect.  Women  and 
girls  ran  out  of  houses  in  the  suburbs  during  the 
hottest  action  to  give  food  and  drink  to  the  troops 
or  help  the  wounded  into  shelter.  Everywhere 
about  the  city,  in  spite  of  the  restrictions  upon 
movement,  the  people  followed  the  military  opera- 
tions with  a  close  interest  that  often  came  near  to 
foolish  recklessness,  and  not  infrequently  paid  its 
extreme  penalty. 

The  attitude  of  the  lower  classes  was  neces- 
sarily more  complex  and  uncertain  than  that  of 
the  upper  and  middle  classes.  In  the  case  of  the 
former  there  was  a  divided  allegiance  in  that 
some  of  their  relations  and  friends  were  fighting 
in  the  rebel  ranks,  while  others  fought  in  the 
ranks  of  the  Irish  regiments  engaged  in  the  sup- 
pression of  the  rising.  In  these  circumstances 
the  people  in  many  cases  extended  a  negative 
support  to  the  rebels  in  such  ways  as  facilitating 
their  escape  when  opportunity  offered.  But  they 
extended  no  active  support  ;  the  mass  of  popular 
opinion  manifested  itself  unmistakeably  as  not 
with  the  rebels.  Beyond  a  vague  sympathy  in 
some  quarters,  the  rebellion  was  not  favoured  by 


160   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


the  working  classes,  as  distinguished  from  the 
hooligans  who  are  always  the  allies  of  the  enemies 
of  the  police.  The  working  classes,  moreover, 
early  appreciated  the  economic  penalties  of  revo- 
lution. The  shortage  of  food  quickly  became 
acute,  and  prices  rose  rapidly  to  famine  level.  The 
actual  food  shortage  was  aggravated  by  the  abey- 
ance of  means  of  distribution,  and  a  suspension 
of  money  currency.  In  the  case  of  the  upper  and 
middle  classes  citizens  went  foraging  for  their 
own  supplies,  and  where  they  found  themselves, 
as  numbers  of  people  did,  short  of  ready  cash, 
were  able  to  secure  them  on  credit.  By  these 
classes,  living  principally  in  the  suburbs,  food, 
though  with  great  difficulty  and  in  increasingly 
restricted  amounts,  was  at  least  obtainable. 

But  by  the  working  classes,  concentrated  prin- 
cipally in  the  centre  of  the  city,  food  soon  became 
altogether  unobtainable  by  legitimate  means.  In 
the  poorer  quarters  of  Dublin  a  large  proportion 
of  the  population  lives,  in  normal  times,  perilously 
near  the  starvation  line.  The  Larkinite  labour 
movement  had  owed  its  spread  and  power  not  only 
to  the  persuasive  teaching  of  class  war  by  the 
agitator,  but  even  more  to  the  existence  of  the 
most  deplorable  economic  conditions.*  The  war, 
by  relieving  a  congested  labour  market  in  one 
direction  by  enlistment,  and  in  the  other  by  the 
prosperity  of  industries  concerned  with  war  work, 
and  by  endowing  numerous  families  with  separa- 
tion allowances  which  represented  wealth  in  a  city 
of  low-paid  labour,  had  greatly  improved  for  the 
time  being  the  material  conditions  of  life  in  the 
Dublin  tenements.  The  terms  of  existence  of  their 
inhabitants,  however,  remained  precarious.  Their 
unwonted  prosperity  had  induced  no  habit  of 
thrift;  they  remained  narrowly  dependent,  with 

*  See  Eeport  of  the  Departmental  Committee  on  Dublin 
Housing. 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  161 


no  financial  reserves  of  any  kind,  upon  weekly- 
payments.  These  weekly  payments,  upon  the  out- 
break of  the  Rebellion,  suddenly  ceased.  Industry 
was  at  a  standstill;  unemployment,  instead  of 
being  an  exceptional,  became  at  once  a  general 
condition;  separation  allowances  could  not  be 
paid.  It  was  rather  sheer  hunger  than  mere  lust 
of  plunder  in  the  first  instance  which  drove  the 
slum  mob  into  an  orgy  of  looting  in  the  central 
area  of  the  city.  The  behaviour  of  the  crowds,  in 
the  entire  absence  for  a  considerable  time  over 
wide  areas  of  any  authority,  was  in  general  re- 
markably orderly ;  the  amount  of  looting,  in  view 
of  the  unique  opportunity  which  the  Rebellion 
presented,  was  comparatively  small.  Looting  was 
most  extensive  and  reckless  in  the  Sackville  Street 
district.  It  began  with  attacks  induced  by  hunger 
on  the  provision  shops.  It  was  headed,  however, 
by  the  hooligan  element;  it  lost  all  savour  of  re- 
straint when  the  contents  of  the  publichouses 
became  available  to  the  crowd,  and  it  degenerated 
inevitably  into  a  carnival  of  pillage  and  destruc- 
tion which  spared  the  stock  of  no  establishment  of 
any  kind  within  the  reach  of  the  looters. 

The  city  remained  in  effective  rebel  occupation 
throughout  the  second  day  of  the  rising,  Tuesday, 
April  25th.  By  this  time  the  Curragh  mobile 
column,  consisting  of  sixteen  hundred  men,  which 
had  been  ordered  to  Dublin  on  the  previous  day  to 
reinforce  the  garrison — which  at  the  time  of  the 
attack  numbered  only  some  two  thousand  three 
hundred  men — had  been  followed  by  a  battery  of 
four  eighteen  pounder  guns  from  the  Reserve 
Artillery  Brigade  at  Athlone,  the  4th  Dublin 
Fusiliers  from  Templemore,  a  composite  battalion 
from  Belfast,  and  an  additional  thousand  men 
from  the  Curragh.  With  the  arrival  of  the  first 
details  of  these  reinforcements,  Brigadier-General 
Lowe,  commanding  the  Reserve  Cavalry  Brigade 


L 


162   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


at  the  Curragh,  who  had  assumed  command  in 
Dublin,  and  now  disposed  of  about  four  thousand 
five  hundred  men,  began  serious  operations  for 
the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion.  The  first  steps 
taken  were  to  relieve  and  open  communication  with 
the  Castle  and  Trinity  College,  and  to  this  end  a 
line  of  posts  was  established  from  Kingsbridge 
Station  to  the  College  via  the  Castle.  This  oper- 
ation was  completed  by  noon  with  little  loss;  it 
had  the  effect  of  completing  that  division  into  two 
of  the  rebel  forces  which  the  holding  of  Trinity 
College  by  its  garrison  had  begun,  and  of  giving 
a  safe  line  of  advance  for  troops  extending  oper- 
ations to  the  north  or  south.  The  hold  of  the 
troops  upon  the  Castle,  however,  was  not  yet 
secure.  The  rebel  body  detailed  to  seize  it, 
baffled  in  its  first  attempt,  had  occupied  the  City 
Hall,  the  Dublin  Daily  Express  office,  and  some 
other  houses  commanding  the  Castle  Yard.  From 
these  it  maintained  a  heavy  fire  upon  the 
Castle.  In  this  fighting  the  rebels  first  employed 
bombs.  Those  used  in  the  attack  on  the  Castle 
were  of  faulty  construction.  In  many  cases  they 
failed  to  explode ;  but,  on  being  readjusted  by  the 
soldiers,  they  were  used  with  good  effect  against 
the  rebels.  It  was  decided  to  clear  the  buildings 
dominating  the  Castle,  and  an  assault  with  bomb 
and  bayonet  succeeded  in  this  object  after  en- 
countering a  very  desperate  and  tenacious  resist- 
ance. 

Upon  the  arrival  of  further  military  reinforce- 
ments a  cordon  was  established  round  the  northern 
part  of  the  city  from  Parkgate,  along  the  North 
Circular  Road  to  North  Wall.  It  was  obvious, 
however,  by  this  time  that  the  strength  of  the 
rebels'  position  was  so  great  that,  except  at  ex- 
cessive loss,  its  reduction  could  not  usefully  be 
attempted  until  a  great  numerical  superiority  and 
considerable  artillery  support  were  available. 


:  / 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  163 


Though  a  cordon  had  been  drawn  round  the 
north  side  of  the  city,  the  south  side  still  remained 
open,  and  it  was  necessary  to  await  the  arrival  of 
the  reinforcements  which  were  on  the  way  from 
England  to  complete  the  cordon  before  the  advance 
on  the  north  side  was  pressed.  Nothing  further 
was  attempted  on  this  side  on  April  25th,  there- 
fore, than  the  clearance  of  the  Broadstone  Station, 
and  the  destruction  of  a  barricade  at  Phibsboro' 
by  artillery  fire. 

The  military  situation  at  this  stage  as  it  was 
envisaged  by  the  rebel  leaders  was  thus  repre- 
sented with  some  approximation  to  the  truth  in 
the  terms  of  the  Second  Proclamation  of  the 
"Provisional  Government"  to  the  Citizens  of 
Dublin.    It  ran  as  follows: — 

The  Provisional  Government  of  the  Irish  Re- 
public salutes  the  Citizens  of  Dublin  on  the 
momentous  occasion  of  the  Proclamation 
of  a  "  Sovereign  Independent  Irish  State," 
now  in  course  of  being  established  by  Irish- 
men in  arms. 

The  Republican  Forces  hold  the  lines  taken  up 
at  twelve  noon  on  Easter  Monday,  and, 
nowhere,  despite  fierce  and  almost  con- 
tinuous attacks  of  the  British  troops,  have 
the  lines  been  broken  through.  The  country 
is  rising  in  answer  to  Dublin's  call,  and  the 
final  achievement  of  Ireland's  freedom  is 
now,  with  God's  help,  only  a  matter  of 
days.  The  valour,  self-sacrifice,  and  dis- 
cipline of  Irish  men  and  women  are  about 
to  win  for  our  country  a  glorious  place 
among  the  Nations. 

Ireland's  honour  has  already  been  redeemed;  it 
remains  to  vindicate  her  wisdom  and  self- 
control.  All  citizens  of  Dublin  who  believe 
in  the  right  of  their  country  to  be  free  will 


164    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


give  their  allegiance  and  their  loyal  help 
to  the  Irish  Republic.  There  is  work  for 
everyone;  for  the  men  in  the  fighting  line, 
and  for  the  women  in  the  provision  of  food 
and  first  aid.  Every  Irishman  and  Irish- 
woman worthy  of  the  name  will  come  for- 
ward to  help  their  common  country  in  this 
her  supreme  hour. 

Able  bodied  citizens  can  help  by  building 
barricades  in  the  streets  to  oppose  the  ad- 
vance of  the  British  troops.  The  British 
troops  have  been  firing  on  our  women  and 
on  our  Red  Cross.  On  the  other  hand,  Irish 
Regiments  in  the  British  Army  have  refused 
to  act  against  their  fellow-countrymen.* 

The  Provisional  Government  hopes  that  its  sup- 
porters— which  means  the  vast  bulk  of  the 
people  of  Dublin — will  preserve  order,  and 
self-restraint;  such  looting  as  has  already 
occurred  has  been  done  by  hangers-on  of 
the  British  Army.  Ireland  must  keep  her 
new  honour  unsmirched. 

We  have  lived  to  see  an  Irish  Republic  pro- 
claimed. May  we  live  to  establish  it  firmly, 
and  may  our  children  and  our  children's 
children  enjoy  the  happiness  and  pros- 
perity which  freedom  will  bring. 

Signed  on  behalf  of  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment: 

P.  H.  PEARSE. 

Commander-in-Chief  the  Forces  of  the  Irish 
Republic,  and  President  of  the  Provisional 
Government. 

*  Neither  of  these  allegations  was  true.  The  loyalty  and 
discipline  of  the  Irish  Eegiments  stood  fast  in  the  supreme 
test — most  severe  of  all  in  the  case  of  the  Royal  Dublin 
Fusiliers — of  acting  against  their  own  people. 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  165 


When  this  document  was  written  the  downfall 
of  the  Irish  Republic  was  already  at  hand.  By 
Tuesday  evening  the  first  details  of  two  infantry 
brigades  of  the  59th  Division,  which  Viscount 
French,  Commander-in-Chief  Home  Forces,  had 
ordered  to  Dublin  immediately  upon  receipt  of 
news  of  the  outbreak,  began  to  arrive  at  Kings- 
town. These  reinforcements  moved  on  Dublin  on 
Wednesday,  April  26th,  and  by  the  next  day  the 
cordon  around  Dublin  was  completed  on  the  south 
as  well  as  on  the  north  side.  From  this  point  the 
potential  elements  of  failure  in  the  rebels'  plan 
of  campaign  began  to  operate  progressively  to- 
wards its  actual  failure.  The  inadequacy  of  the 
rebels'  strength  in  Dublin  to  the  execution  of  their 
design  stood  fully  revealed  when,  on  the  one  hand, 
military  reinforcements  from  England,  contrary 
to  their  expectation,  arrived  promptly  and  in 
overwhelming  numbers,  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  reinforcements  which  the  rebels  themselves 
hoped  for  from  the  country  did  not  arrive  in  con- 
sequence of  the  failure  of  the  provincial  rising.  In 
the  result  the  rebels  in  Dublin  were  unable  to  main- 
tain their  internal  lines  of  communication*  The 
isolated  strategic  points  which  they  had  seized 
became  so  many  traps  into  which  they  were 
gradually  penned.  Forces  were  now  available  for 
the  military  authorities  to  develop  the  scheme  of 
drawing  in  the  cordon  upon  the  rebel  centre, 
leaving  the  detached  rebel  bodies  which  its  pro- 
gress left  behind  to  be  surrounded  and  submerged 
in  detail. 

Heavy  fighting,  however,  was  necessary  before 
this  decision  emerged.  The  first  brigade  to  arrive 
at  Kingstown  was  ordered  to  move  on  Dublin  by 
road  in  two  columns  on  Wednesday,  April  26th. 
The  left  column  marched  by  way  of  the  Stillorgan- 
Donnybrook  Road  and  South  Circular  Road  to 
the  Royal  Hospital,  where  it  arrived  without 


166   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


opposition.  The  right  column,  consisting  of  two 
battalions — the  7th  and  8th — of  the  Sherwood 
Foresters,  the  majority  of  whom  had  less  than 
three  months'  service,  marched  by  the  main  tram 
route  through  Ball's  Bridge,  directed  on  Merrion 
Square  and  Trinity  College.  Early  in  the  after- 
noon its  marching  van  came  suddenly  under 
heavy  fire  at  the  northern  corner  of  Haddington 
Road  and  Northumberland  Road.  Here,  on 
Easter  Monday,  a  body  of  Dublin  Veteran  Volun- 
teers— composed  of  professional  men  over 
military  age — had  been  ambushed  while  return- 
ing without  arms  from  a  route  march  in  the 
Dublin  Mountains.  Six  of  its  members  were 
killed  and  ten  wounded.  The  remainder  made 
their  way  to  Beggar's  Bush  Barracks,  where  they 
assisted  the  garrison  in  the  defence  of  the  barracks 
until  it  was  relieved  by  the  advance  of  the  troops. 
The  Rebellion  thus  made  history  for  more  than 
one  branch  of  the  armed  forces  of  the  Crown. 
The  Trinity  College  Officers'  Training  Corps  was 
the  first  of  such  corps  ever  called  upon  to  de- 
fend its  own  University  against  attack;  the 
Dublin  Veteran  Volunteers  were  the  first 
Volunteers  in  the  United  Kingdom  who  shed 
their  blood  in  their  country's  service.  The  opera- 
tions on  the  south  side  of  Dublin,  moreover,  were 
the  first  in  which  units  of  the  New  Armies  were 
thrown  solely  upon  their  own  resources.  They 
emerged  from  the  test  with  great  credit.  The 
leading  battalion  of  the  Sherwood  Foresters, 
coming  suddenly  under  heavy  and  accurate  fire 
at  the  corner  of  Haddington  Road  and  Northum- 
berland Road,  took  such  cover  as  was  available 
and  returned  the  rebel  fire  while  bombing  parties 
were  organised,  who  dislodged  the  rebels.  With 
the  reduction  of  this  first  rebel  outpost  the  relief 
of  Dublin  may  be  said  to  have  begun. 

The  Sherwood  Foresters,  however,  had  not 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  167 


advanced  far  before  -they  became  still  more 
seriously  engaged.  Close  to  Mount  Street  Bridge 
crossing  the  Grand  Canal  they  found  a  strong 
body  of  rebels  holding  the  schools  and  other 
houses  on  the  north  side  of  the  road.  Here  the 
advance  was  held  up  for  more  than  two  hours, 
when  the  whole  column,  accompanied  by  bomb- 
ing parties,  attacked  the  rebel  position  in 
successive  waves  and  carried  it,  after  suffering 
considerable  loss.  Half  the  total  military  casual- 
ties in  the  course  of  the  operations  in  Dublin  were 
sustained  in  this  fighting,  in  which  four  officers 
were  killed,  fourteen  wounded,  and  two  hundred 
and  sixteen  men  killed  and  wounded.  On  the 
following  day,  Thursday,  April  27th,  the  troops 
pushed  on  over  Mount  Street  Bridge,  into  the 
city.  They  were  again  heavily  engaged  in  the 
warren  of  mean  streets  inside  the  bridge  on  the 
right  of  the  line  of  advance  towards  the  river 
mouth  at  Ringsend,  and  behind  the  advance  as 
the  troops  moved  forward  accurate  sniping  broke 
out  from  the  roofs.  It  was  long  before  the  line 
of  communications  was  wholly  cleared  of  these 
hidden  irregulars,  but  by  evening  picquets  had 
penetrated  into  the  heart  of  the  city,  and  com- 
munication was  established  between  the  advanc- 
ing bodies  and  Trinity  College. 

From  this  point  the  main  operation  consisted 
in  the  reduction  of  the  chief  rebel  stronghold  and 
the  seat  of  the  ';  Provisional  Government  ?;  in 
the  General  Post  Office,  which  was  now  isolated 
from  the  other  rebel  positions  in  the  city,  all  of 
which  were  also  surrounded.  Early  in  the  morn- 
ing of  Friday,  April  28th,  General  Sir  John 
Maxwell,  who  on  the  day  before  had  been  ap- 
pointed to  the  supreme  command  in  Ireland  and 
invested  with  plenary  powers  to  take  all  neces- 
sary means  for  the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion, 
arrived  at  the  North  Wall  to  find  the  city 


168   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


illumined  by  the  great  fire  in  the  Sackville  Street 
area.  The  great  fire  had  broken  out  on  Thursday 
morning  on  the  west  side  of  Sackville  Street  close 
to  the  river.  How  it  originated — whether  as  a 
result  of  the  shelling  of  the  area  from  across  the 
river,  from  the  explosion  of  a  rebel  ammunition 
store,  or  by  some  accident  of  looting — is 
uncertain.  Fanned  by  a  breeze  from  the  sea,  the 
flames,  which  the  almost  ceaseless  fusilade  made 
it  virtually  impossible  for  the  Fire  Brigade  to 
attempt  to  fight,  spread  gradually  across  to  the 
east  side  of  the  street,  and  a  wide  area,  contain- 
ing upwards  of  two  hundred  buildings,  which 
included  the  General  Post  Office,  several  banks 
and  insurance  offices,  two  churches,  and  a  number 
of  important  business  houses,  as  well  as  the 
Royal  Hibernian  Academy,  had  been  burnt  out 
before  the  fire  was  finally  brought  under  control 
the  day  after  the  collapse  of  the  Rebellion. 

Upon  his  arrival,  Sir  John  Maxwell  issued  a 
Proclamation  in  these  terms: — 

' '  Most  rigorous  measures  will  be  taken  by  me 
to  stop  the  loss  of  life  and  damage  to  property 
which  certain  misguided  persons  are  causing  by 
their  armed  resistance  to  the  law.  If  necessary 
I  shall  not  hesitate  to  destroy  all  buildings  within 
any  area  occupied  by  the  rebels,  and  I  warn  all 
persons  within  the  area  now  surrounded  by  His 
Majesty's  troops  forthwith  to  leave  such  areas 
under  the  following  conditions : — (a)  Women  and 
children  may  leave  the  area  from  any  of  the 
examining  posts  set  up  for  the  purpose,  and  will 
be  allowed  to  go  away  free,  (b)  Men  may  leave 
by  the  same  examining  posts  and  will  be  allowed 
to  go  away  free,  provided  the  examining  officer 
is  satisfied  they  have  taken  no  part  whatever  in 
the  present  disturbance;  (c)  All  other  men  who 
present  themselves  to  the  said  examining  posts 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  169 


must  surrender  unconditionally,  together  with 
any  arms  and  ammunition  in  their  possession. 5 ' 

In  accordance  with  the  terms  of  this  Proclama- 
tion the  process  of  "  squeezing  out  "  the 
surrounded  areas  of  Sackville  Street  and  the  Four 
Courts  was  continued  remorselessly  throughout 
Friday,  April  28th.  It  encountered  strenuous  op- 
position on  the  north  side  of  the  river,  where  at 
one  point  nearly  twenty-four  hours  were  occupied 
in  an  advance  of  a  hundred  yards  down  a  single 
street — North  King  Street.  From  the  south  side 
of  the  river  progress  was  easier.  At  the  end  of 
Sackville  Street  abutting  on  the  bridge  the 
rebels  had  occupied  houses  and  shops  immediately 
commanding  the  bridge,  and  bringing  Westmore- 
land Street  and  D'Olier  Street  under  a  searching 
fire.  On  the  left  of  these  rebel  positions,  Liberty 
Hall,  the  Headquarters  of  the  Citizen  Army, 
could  bring  enfilade  fire  to  bear  on  O'Connell 
Bridge,  and  direct  fire  on  Butt  Bridge  This 
buttress  of  the  rebel  position,  however,  was  early 
reduced  by  the  combined  operations  of  a  gunboat 
lying  in  the  Liffey  off  the  Custom  House  and  field 
pieces  manoeuvred  from  Trinity  College  into  the 
adjacent  streets.  Before  the  end  of  the  week  the 
rebel  outposts  commanding  the  bridge  had  suc- 
cumbed to  the  flames;  their  defenders  suffered 
severely  from  machine  gun  fire  directed  from  the 
roof  of  Trinity  College  while  attempting  to  make 
their  escape.  The  operations  of  the  troops  from 
the  south  side  were  thus  linked  up  with  the  opera- 
tions of  the  troops  pressing  in  on  the  north  side. 

Thus,  by  Friday,  April  28th,  the  position  of  the 
rebels  in  their  headquarters  in  the  Sackville  Street 
area,  ringed  by  a  circle  of  fire  and  steel,  was 
already  hopeless.  In  these  circumstances  the  two 
real  leaders  of  the  Rebellion,  Pearse  and  Connolly, 
composed  valedictory  documents  as  widely  differ- 


170   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


ent  in  their  spirit  as  the  characters  of  the  two  men. 
There  was  in  Pearse's  vindication  of  his  action — 
a  document  which  incidentally  threw  some  light 
on  the  proceedings  of  the  rebel  headquarters  on 
the  eve  of  the  rising — some  trace  of  regret  for  the 
the  ruin  in  which  he  had  involved  his  followers, 
but  more  in  a  spirit  of  passionate  exaltation  and 
stoic  resignation  to  the  inevitable  end.  Pearse, 
at  least,  whatever  his  confidence  in  its  moral 
justification,  had  no  illusions  about  the  material 
issue  of  the  enterprise.    This  was  his  valedictory : 

' '  Headquarters :  Army  of  the  Irish 
Republic. 
"  General  Post  Office, 

"  Dublin,  28th  April,  1916. 

9.30  a.m. 

"  The  Forces  of  the  Irish  Republic,  which  was 
proclaimed  in  Dublin  on  Easter  Monday,  24th 
April,  have  been  in  possession  of  the  central  part 
of  the  Capital  since  12  noon  on  that  day.  Up  to 
yesterday  afternoon,  Headquarters  was  in  touch 
with  all  the  main  outlying  positions,  and  those 
positions  were  then  still  being  held,  and  the  Com- 
mandants in  charge  were  confident  of  their  ability 
to  hold  them  for  a  long  time. 

' '  During  the  course  of  yesterday  afternoon  and 
evening,  the  enemy  succeeded  in  cutting  our  com- 
munications with  our  other  positions  in  the  city, 
and  Headquarters  is  to-day  isolated. 

"  The  enemy  have  burnt  down  whole  blocks  of 
houses,  apparently  with  the  object  of  giving  them- 
selves a  clear  field  for  the  play  of  artillery  and 
field  guns  against  us.  We  have  been  bombarded 
during  the  evening  and  night  by  shrapnel  and 
machine  gun  fire,  but  without  material  damage  to 
our  position,  which  is  of  great  strength. 

"  We  are  busy  completing  arrangements  for  the 


THE  EEBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  171 


final  defence  of  Headquarters,  and  are  determined 
to  hold  it  while  the  buildings  last. 

'  'I  desire  now,  lest  I  may  not  have  an  opportunity- 
later,  to  pay  homage  to  the  gallantry  of  the 
Soldiers  of  Irish  Freedom  who  have  during  the 
past  four  days  been  writing  with  fire  and  steel  the 
most  glorious  chapter  in  the  later  history  of  Ire- 
land. Justice  can  never  be  done  to  their  heroism, 
to  their  discipline,  to  their  gay  and  unconquerable 
spirit,  in  the  midst  of  peril  and  death. 

"  Let  me,  who  have  led  them  into  this,  speak,  in 
my  own  and  in  my  fellow-commanders'  names, 
and  in  the  name  of  Ireland  present  and  to  come, 
their  praise,  and  ask  those  who  come  after  them 
to  remember  them. 

"  For  four  days  they  have  fought  and  toiled, 
almost  without  cessation,  almost  without  sleep, 
and  in  the  intervals  of  fighting,  they  have  sung 
songs  of  the  freedom  of  Ireland.  No  man  has 
complained,  no  man  has  asked  "why?"  Each 
individual  has  spent  himself,  happy  to  pour  out 
his  strength  for  Ireland  and  for  freedom.  If  they 
do  not  win  this  fight,  they  will  at  least  have  de- 
served to  win  it.  But  win  it  they  will,  although 
they  may  win  it  in  death.  Already  they  have  won 
a  great  thing.  They  have  redeemed  Dublin  from 
many  shames,  and  made  her  name  splendid  among 
the  names  of  cities. 

"  If  I  were  to  mention  names  of  individuals,  my 
list  would  be  a  long  one.  I  will  name  only  that 
of  Commandant-General  James  Connolly,  Com- 
manding the  Dublin  Division.  He  lies  wounded, 
but  is  still  the  guiding  brain  of  our  resistance. 

' '  If  we  accomplish  no  more  than  we  have  accom- 
plished, I  am  satisfied.  I  am  satisfied  that  we  have 
saved  Ireland's  honour.  I  am  satisfied  that  we 
should  have  accomplished  more,  that  we  should 
have  accomplished  the  task  of  enthroning,  as  well 
as  proclaiming,  the  Irish  Republic  as  a  Sovereign 


172   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


State,  had  our  arrangements  for  a  simultaneous 
rising  of  the  whole  country,  with  a  combined  plan 
as  sound  as  the  Dublin  plan  has  been  proved  to  be, 
been  allowed  to  go  through  on  Easter  Sunday.  Of 
the  fatal  countermanding  order  which  prevented 
those  plans  from  being  carried  out,  I  shall  not 
speak  further.  Both  Eoin  MacNeill  and  we  have 
acted  in  the  best  interests  of  Ireland. 

'  'For  my  part,  as  to  anything  I  have  done  in  this, 
I  am  not  afraid  to  face  either  the  judgment  of 
God  or  the  judgment  of  posterity. 

"  (Signed)     P.  H.  PEARSE, 

"  Commandant-General. 

"  Commanding-in-Chief,  the  Army  of 
the  Irish  Republic  and  President  of 
the  Provisional  Government." 

Connolly  had  been  wounded  in  the  leg  on  the  day 
before,  and  this  incapacity  of  the  man  who  was  the 
chief  driving  force  in  the  enterprise  contributed 
materially  to  the  rapid  disintegration  of  the  rebels' 
remaining  resistance.  His  letter,  however,  which 
took  the  form  of  an  "  Order  of  the  Day  ' ' — though 
there  was  by  this  time  no  chance  of  getting  such 
an  Order  distributed — was  written  in  a  strain  of 
confidence  very  different  from  that  of  Pearse.  It 
was,  of  course,  the  business  of  a  Commander  to 
attempt  to  hearten  his  men;  but  the — in  the  cir- 
cumstances— excessive  cheerfulness  of  Connolly's 
document  suggests  that  he  still  entertained  some 
hope  that  a  stroke  by  Germany  might  yet  trans- 
form the  situation.    It  read  as  follows : — 

"  Army  of  the  Irish  Republic, 

"  (Dublin  Command) 
Headquarters,  April  28th,  1916 

"  To  Soldiers, 

1 '  This  is  the  fifth  day  of  the  establishment  of  the 
Irish  Republic,  and  the  flag  of  our  country  still 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  173 


floats  from  the  most  important  buildings  in 
Dublin,  and  is  gallantly  protected  by  the  officers 
and  Irish  soldiers  in  arms  throughout  the  country. 
Not  a  day  passes  without  seeing  fresh  postings  of 
Irish  soldiers  eager  to  do  battle  for  the  old  cause. 
Despite  the  utmost  vigilance  of  the  enemy  we  have 
been  able  to  get  information  telling  us  how  the 
manhood  of  Ireland,  inspired  by  our  splendid 
action,  are  gathering  to  offer  up  their  lives  if  neces- 
sary in  the  same  holy  cause.  We  are  here  hemmed 
in,  because  the  enemy  feels  that  in  this  building  is 
to  be  found  the  heart  and  inspiration  of  our  great 
movement. 

' '  Let  me  remind  you  of  what  we  have  done.  For 
the  first  time  in  700  years  the  flag  of  a  free  Ireland 
floats  triumphantly  in  Dublin  City.  The  British 
Army,  whose  exploits  we  are  for  ever  having 
dinned  in  our  ears,  which  boasts  of  having  stormed 
the  Dardanelles  and  the  German  lines  on  the 
Marne,  behind  their  artillery  and  machine  guns, 
are  afraid  to  advance  to  attack  or  storm  any  posi- 
tion held  by  our  forces.  The  slaughter  they  have 
suffered  in  the  first  few  days  has  totally  unnerved 
them,  and  they  dare  not  attempt  again  an  infantry 
attack  on  our  position. 

Our  Commandants  around  us  are  holding  their 
own.  Commandant  Daly's  splendid  exploit  in 
capturing  Linen  Hall  Barracks  we  all  know.  You 
must  know  also  that  the  whole  population,  both 
clergy  and  laity,  of  this  district  are  united  in  his 
praises.  Commandant  MacDonagh  is  established 
in  an  impregnable  position  reaching  from  the 
walls  of  Dublin  Castle  to  Redmond's  Hill,  and 
from  Bishop's  Street  to  Stephen's  Green.  In 

Stephen's  Green,  Commandant    holds 

the  College  of  Surgeons,  one  side  of  the  Square,  a 
portion  of  the  other  side,  and  dominates  the  whole 
Green  and  all  its  entrances  and  exits. 

"  Commandant  de  Valera  stretches  in  a  positioa 


174   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


from  the  Gas  Works  to  Westland  Row,  holding 
Boland's  Bakery,  Boland's  Mill,  Dublin  South 
Eastern  Railway  Works,  and  dominating  Merrion 
Square. 

"  Commandant  Kent  holds  the  South  Dublin 
Union  and  Guinness's  Buildings  to  Marrowbone 
Lane  and  controls  James's  Street  and  district.  On 
two  occasions  the  enemy  effected  a  lodgment,  and 
were  driven  out  with  great  loss. 

"  The  men  of  North  Co.  Dublin  are  in  the  field, 
have  occupied  all  the  Police  Barracks  in  the  dis- 
trict, destroyed  all  the  telegraph  system  on  the 
Great  Northern  Railway  up  to  Dundalk,  and  are 
operating  against  the  trains  of  the  Midland  Great 
Western.  Dundalk  has  sent  200  men  to  march 
upon  Dublin,  and  in  the  other  parts  of  the  north 
our  forces  are  active  and  growing.    In  Galway 

Captain  fresh  after  his  escape  from  an 

Irish  prison,  is  in  the  field  with  his  men.  Wexford 
and  Wicklow  are  strong,  and  Cork  and  Kerry  are 
equally  acquitting  themselves  creditably.  We  have 
every  confidence  that  our  Allies  in  Germany  and 
kinsmen  in  America  are  straining  every  nerve  to 
hasten  matters  on  our  behalf. 

"  As  you  know  I  was  wounded  twice  yesterday, 
and  am  unable  to  move  about,  but  have  got  my  bed 
moved  into  the  firing  line,  and  with  the  assistance 
of  your  officers,  will  be  just  as  useful  to  you  as 
ever. 

"Courage,  boys,  we  are  winning,  and  in  the  hour 
of  our  victory  let  us  not  forget  the  splendid  women 
who  have  everywhere  stood  by  us  and  cheered  us 
on.  Never  had  man  or  woman  a  grander  cause, 
never  was  cause  more  grandly  served. 

"(Signed)     JAMES  CONNOLLY, 
"  Commandant-General,  Dublin  Division." 

Connolly's  presentation  of  the  military  situation 
in  this  document  was  a  complete  travesty  of  the 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  175 


facts.  The  position  outside  Dublin,  as  we  shall 
see  in  the  chapter  dealing  with  the  Rebellion  in 
the  provinces,  did  not  at  all  justify  his  claims.  In 
Dublin,  the  prospects  of  the  Commandants  outside 
the  Sackville  Street  area  were  by  this  time  hope- 
less. Daly,  on  Thursday,  April  27th,  had  set  fire 
to  and  destroyed  Linen  Hall  Barracks,  occupied 
by  the  Army  Pay  Office,  but  subsequently  his  forces 
were  hemmed  in  and  surrounded.  MacDonagh  and 
his  body  were  invested  in  Jacob's  factor}7.  Coun- 
tess Marcievicz  and  her  body  of  the  Citizen  Army 
had  earlv  in  the  week  been  dislodged  from  St. 
Stephen's  Green.  The  seizure  of  this  position  was 
a  conspicuous  tactical  blunder  on  the  part  of  the 
rebels.  The  Green  was  dominated  from  the  roofs 
and  upper  stories  of  the  buildings  enclosing  it, 
particularly  from  the  lofty  structure  of  the  Shel- 
bourne  Hotel.  On  the  roof  of  this  hotel  and  on  that 
of  the  United  Service  Club  picquets  with  machine 
guns  had  been  posted  early  in  the  week,  and  from 
these  commanding  positions  were  able  to  rake  the 
Green  from  end  to  end.  The  rebels  returned  the 
fire  without  causing  any  casualties  in  the  hotel, 
where  the  visitors  remained  under  a  strict  state 
of  siege,  but  they  soon  found  their  position  in  the 
Green  untenable,  and  retired  from  their  hastily 
improvised  entrenchments,  not  without  consider- 
able loss,  to  the  massive  building,  on  one  side  of 
the  Green,  of  the  College  of  Surgeons,  on  which  the 
military  machine  gun  continued  to  play.  De  Valera 
and  his  forces,  after  the  forcing  of  Mount  Street 
Bridge,  had  been  driven  back  into  his  headquar- 
ters in  Boland's  Mills;  in  the  clearance  of  this 
district  a  naval  gun,  skilfully  handled,  played  a 
very  useful  part.  Finally,  Kent  maintained  a 
most  precarious  footing  in  a  part  of  the  South 
Dublin  Union.  All  these  rebel  positions  were 
completely  isolated  from  each  other  and  from  the 
Headquarters  in  the  Sackville  Street  area. 


176    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


On  Saturday,  April  29th,  there  came  the  end. 
Throughout  the  morning  the  investing  ring  round 
the  rebel  headquarters  pressed  in  more  closely. 
A  battery  of  field  artillery  wrought  great  execution 
upon  its  defences.  The  rebels  fought  with  the 
courage  of  despair  in  a  confused  and  desperate 
affair  of  ambuscades  and  sniping  in  which  the 
baleful  glare  of  the  fires  paled  the  light  of  the  sun. 
Before  noon,  however,  the  block  of  buildings  in 
front  and  rear  of  the  Post  Office  was  demolished, 
and  the  Post  Office  was  itself  in  flames.  The  rebel 
garrison  made  good  its  escape  from  the  burning 
building  after  sending  out  its  military  prisoners  to 
draw  the  fire  of  the  troops ;  but  its  case  was  little 
better  outside  than  within.  Early  in  the  after- 
noon a  Red  Cross  nurse  brought  in  a  message  from 
Pearse  asking  for  terms.  A  reply  was  sent  that 
only  unconditional  surrender  would  be  accepted. 
At  two  o'clock  Pearse  surrendered  himself  un- 
conditionally, and  was  brought  before  Sir  John 
Maxwell.  He  then  signed  notices  in  the  following 
terms  ordering  the  various  Commandants  to  sur- 
render unconditionally : — 

"  In  order  to  prevent  the  further  slaughter  of 
unarmed  people,  and  in  the  hope  of  saving  the 
lives  of  our  followers,  now  surrounded  and  hope- 
lessly outnumbered,  members  of  the  Provisional 
Government  present  at  Headquarters  have  agreed 
to  an  unconditional  surrender,  and  the  Com- 
manders of  all  Units  of  the  Republican  Forces  will 
order  their  followers  to  lay  down  their  arms." 

Connolly  subscribed  to  this  document  on  behalf 
both  of  the  forces  in  his  immediate  command  and 
those  in  the  St.  Stephen's  Green  command. 
MacDonagh,  Kent  and  De  Valera  made  their  sub- 
mission on  Sunday,  April  30th,  on  which  date  all 
organised  resistance  to  the  forces  of  the  Crown 


THE  REBELLION  IN  DUBLIN  177 


came  completely  to  an  end.  Though  sniping  con- 
tinued in  various  districts  of  the  city  for  several 
days,  to  be  suppressed  only  gradually  by  a 
systematic  house-to-house  search  for  rebels  and 
arms.  Dublin  began  to  recover  something  of  its 
normal  aspect  on  the  Sunday  after  Pearse's  sur- 
render. Movement  within  the  military  cordon  was 
now  permitted,  and  the  citizens  emerged  from  the 
shock  of  a  week  of  revolution  to  survey  the  ruins 
of  the  centre  of  the  city  and  to  bury  their  dead. 


M 


CHAPTER  X. 


THE  EEBELLION  IN  THE  PROVINCES 

Meanwhile  there  had  taken  place  a  rising  in  the 
provinces,  but  a  rising  very  different  in  character 
from  the  rebel  leaders'  conception.  The  vital 
function  which  the  provincial  rising  was  designed 
to  fulfil  has  already  been  emphasised,  and  the 
variety  of  causes  which  conspired  to  defeat  the 
fulfilment  of  that  function  has  already  been  out- 
lined. It  was  intended  to  be  general  throughout 
the  country ;  the  provincial  outbreaks  were  to  have 
as  their  main  objects  on  the  one  hand  the  diversion 
of  military  forces  which  would  otherwise  be  avail- 
*  able  for  immediate  concentration  upon  the  capital, 
and  on  the  other  hand  the  reinforcement  from  the 
country  of  the  rebel  troops  whose  strength  was 
inadequate  to  the  task  of  holding  Dublin  after  its 
seizure.  The  interception  of  the  Casement  expedi- 
tion and  the  consequent  failure  of  the  arms  supply, 
for  whose  rapid  distribution  in  the  south  and  west 
elaborate  arrangements  had  been  made,  was  the 
prime  cause  which  deranged  these  plans.  The 
countermanding  by  MacNeill  of  the  order  for 
mobilisation  on  Easter  Sunday  completed  the  dis- 
location of  the  plans  for  the  provincial  rising. 

Except  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  Dublin, 
where  the  local  centres  were  in  close  touch  with 
headquarters,  the  local  leaders,  doubtful  of  the 
situation,  held  their  hands  and  waited  upon  the 
development  of  events.  The  prompt  measures 
taken  for  the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion  in 
Dublin  and  the  military  precautions  at  once 


IN  THE  PROVINCES  179 


adopted  elsewhere  acted,  when  the  news  of  events 
in  the  capital  was  received,  as  an  effectual  deter- 
rent in  most  parts  of  the  country.  In  the  upshot 
the  provincial  rising  was  sporadic,  disjointed,  and 
ineffective  in  so  far  as  its  main  objects  were  con- 
cerned. The  areas  of  disturbance  were  limited  iu 
extent  and  widely  separated  one  from  another, 
with  the  result  that  the  outbreaks  were  of  purely 
local  significance.  Their  suppression,  however, 
though  it  issued  in  little  actual  fighting,  involved 
military  operations  of  some  scope. 

The  provincial  rising,  as  was  to  be  expected,  was 
best  conceived  and  executed  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  the  capital.  The  whole  area  of  North 
County  Dublin,  the  adjacent  area  of  County  Meath, 
and  beyond  into  County  Louth  by  way  of  Ardee  as 
far  north  as  Dundalk — all  this  district,  with  the 
exception  of  Drogheda  and  its  neighbourhood,  was 
more  or  less  affected  by  the  rebel  operations. 
Connolly,  in  his  "  Order  of  the  Day  "  written  at 
the  Dublin  Headquarters  on  the  Friday  before  the 
surrender,  said  that  "  the  men  of  North  County 
Dublin  are  in  the  field,  have  occupied  all  the 
police  barracks  in  the  district,  destroyed  all  the 
telegraph  system  on  the  Great  Northern  Railway 
up  to  Dundalk,  and  are  operating  against  the 
trains  of  the  Midland  Great  Western.  Dundalk  has 
sent  two  hundred  men  to  march  on  Dublin,  and  in 
other  parts  of  the  north  our  forces  are  active  and 
growing.5 '  In  point  of  fact,  the  rising  beyond  the 
borders  of  County  Dublin  was  of  insignificant  pro- 
portions. 

In  County  Louth  a  body  of  some  seventy  rebels 
left  Dundalk  in  motor  cars  on  Easter  Sunday  and 
proceeded  to  rendezvous  with  some  smaller  bodies 
near  Ardee,  where  arms,  including  some  stolen 
from  the  National  Volunteers,  were  distributed. 
On  Easter  Monday,  April  24th,  a  part  of  the 


180   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


CountyLouth  force  proceeded  into  the  North  County- 
Dublin  area.  The  remainder  returned  towards 
Dundalk  by  way  of  Castlebellingham,  losing  some 
of  its  strength  by  desertions  en  route.  At  Castle- 
bellingham the  rebels  arrested  some  policemen, 
who  were  hopelessly  outnumbered  and  offered  no 
resistance,  and  one  of  their  number  was  shot  and 
mortally  wounded,  more  probably  by  accident 
rather  than  in  cold  blood.  Vehicles  on  the  northern 
high  road  were  stopped  and  searched,  and  some 
motor  cars  were  seized.  The  occupant  of  one  of 
them,  a  military  officer,  was  shot  and  severely 
wounded  at  the  same  time  as  the  police  constable. 
Some  country  houses  in  the  Castlebellingham  dis- 
trict were  briefly  occupied,  but  the  County  Louth 
rebels  disbanded  early  in  the  week  before  their 
activities  had  become  serious  enough  to  require 
military  measures  for  their  suppression.  In 
Drogheda,  where  no  outbreak  occurred,  the 
National  Volunteers  turned  out  to  assist  the  police 
in  maintaining  order. 

In  County  Dublin  the  rising  was  much  more 
formidable.  Here  the  rebel  headquarters  was  at 
Swords,  and  an  extensive  district  around  this 
centre  remained  in  rebel  hands  for  the  best  part 
of  the  week.  In  this  area  several  police  barracks 
were  surprised  and  occupied.  Swords  and 
Donabate  and  Lusk,  two  villages  on  the  coast,  fell 
successively  into  the  rebels'  hands.  At  Donabate 
two  attempts  were  made  to  blow  up  the  railway 
bridge ;  these  attempts  were  only  partially  success- 
ful, but  railway  communication  between  Dublin 
and  Drogheda  was  effectually  interrupted.  On 
Wednesday,  April  26th,  the  rebels  from  this  dis- 
trict, reinforced  by  bodies  from  the  district  further 
east  towards  the  County (Meath  border,  proposed  to 
march  on  the  little  seaside  resort  of  Skerries,  with 
the  object  of  seizing  the  Marconi  station  which 


IN  THE  PROVINCES 


181 


had  been  erected  there  by  the  Admiralty.  The 
town  was  almost  entirely  unprotected  against 
attack.  Only  seven  soldiers  were  available  to 
guard  the  wireless  station,  with  a  still  smaller 
number  of  Constabulary  to  reinforce  them.  The 
rebel  strength,  on  the  other  hand,  was  estimated 
to  be  between  three  and  four  hundred.  Prepara- 
tions were,  nevertheless,  made  to  receive  them. 
A  wounded  officer  on  sick  leave  took  command  of 
the  small  force  in  charge  of  the  wireless  station, 
and  a  Red  Cross  hospital  was  organised  in  the 
local  Carnegie  Librarv.  Word  was  received  that 
the  rebels  were  approaching.  The  townspeople 
gathered  on  the  hill  above  the  station  to 
watch  the  unequal  fight.  Suddenly  a  patrol  boat, 
escorted  by  two  gunboats,  was  seen  approaching 
at  a  great  speed  from  the  direction  of  Lambay 
Island.  As  she  drew  nearer  it  was  seen  that  the 
decks  were  crowded  with  soldiers.  The  little 
flotilla  put  into  Skerries  Harbour  on  a  flood  tide, 
and  two  companies  of  the  North  Staffordshire 
Regiment  were  promptly  disembarked  and 
marched  to  the  wireless  station,  where  they  en- 
trenched. The  gunboats  meanwhile  cruised  off- 
shore with  their  guns  trained  on  the  roads  leading 
to  the  town  by  which  the  rebels  were  expected  to 
arrive.  On  the  following  day  the  Staffords  dug 
themselves  in,  put  up  barricades  of  carts  and 
sandbags  on  all  the  roads,  and  made  every  pre- 
paration for  a  siege.  These  measures  effectually 
prevented  the  projected  rebel  attack,  which  was 
abandoned.  They  provided  the  first  instance  of 
naval  participation  in  the  operations  for  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Rebellion — a  participation  which 
the  fact  that  the  Rebellion  was  essentially  a  blow 
at  the  security  of  British  sea  power  invested  with 
a  peculiar  fitness. 

The  Rebellion  in  County  Dublin,  however,  was 


182   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


not  to  end  without  serious  fighting.  Foiled  in  their 
action  towards  the  coast,  the  rebels  turned  their 
attention  inland  towards  County  Meath,  where 
no  rising  had  taken  place.  On  Friday,  April  28th, 
the  police  authorities  received  information  that 
Ashbourne  Police  Barracks  was  being  attacked 
by  a  body  of  rebels  from  County  Dublin,  some 
hundred  strong.  A  relief  force  was  at  once 
organised  at  Navan.  The  County  Inspector,  the 
District  Inspector,  and  fifty  Constabulary  left  in 
motor  cars,  proceeding  by  way  of  Slane  and  Bal- 
rath  towards  Kilmoon,  where  there  was  another 
small  barracks  a  short  distance  from  Ashbourne. 
Near  Kilmoon  the  force  was  ambushed  by  the 
rebels.  The  motor  cars  had  proceeded  a  short 
distance  from  Kilmoon,  which  is  on  an  eminence, 
at  the  foot  of  which  a  lane  branches  off.  The  rebels 
had  secreted  themselves  in  a  small  grove  by  the 
roadside  at  this  point.  The  police,  on  getting  out 
of  their  motor  cars  at  the  ascent  of  the  hill  with 
the  object  of  marching  to  Ashbourne,  were  sur- 
prised by  a  fusilade  of  bullets.  Several  were 
wounded  immediately,  and  one  killed.  They  took 
what  cover  they  could  behind  their  cars  and  in 
the  ditches,  and  returned  the  rebel  fire.  The  rebels, 
however,  closed  in  on  all  sides,  and  their  leader, 
a  dispensary  doctor  by  name  Hayes,  sent  a 
messenger  to  the  County  Inspector  demanding  the 
surrender  of  his  men.  This  demand  was  refused. 
A  pitched  battle  lasting  five  hours  followed,  in 
the  course  of  which  seven  of  the  constabulary, 
including  the  District  Inspector,  were  killed,  and 
fifteen  wounded,  the  County  Inspector  mortally. 
The  rebel  losses  are  believed  to  have  exceeded  in 
dead  alone  the  total  number  of  police  casualties. 
Two  civilians  were  killed  and  a  third  mortally 
wounded  by  accident  in  the  course  of  this  bloody 
affray .    The  police  fought  until  they  had  expended 


IN  THE  PROVINCES  183 


their  last  cartridge,  when  the  survivors  surren- 
dered. The  rebels  took  possession  of  their  rifles 
and  seized  some  of  their  equipment,  but  the  men 
were  afterwards  released.  Sobered  by  this 
desperate  encounter  the  rebels  withdrew  upon 
Swords,  and  remained  quiet  until  Sunday,  April 
30th,  when,  after  sending  an  emissary  under  a 
white  flag  to  Dublin  to  verify  the  surrender  of  the 
leaders,  they  capitulated  without  coming  into 
active  conflict  with  the  troops. 

Outside  the  vicinity  of  the  capital  the  most 
serious  risings  occurred  in  County  Wexford  and 
County  Galway,  which  faithfully  maintained  their 
rebel  tradition.  In  County  Wexford  the  Sinn  Fein 
movement  was  started  in  Enniscorthy  in  1904;  its 
founders  were  persons  who  had  been  connected 
with  the  old  Fenian  conspiracy.  Sinn  Fein  in  the 
countv,  therefore,  was  of  a  more  militant  char- 
acter,  and  less  in  the  nature  merely  of  a  passive 
resistance  movement,  than  elsewhere;  its  aims, 
besides  the  establishment  of  Irish  industries  and 
the  boycotting  of  English  manufacture,  included 
the  forcible  overthrow  of  British  rule  in  Ireland. 
In  these  circumstances,  the  Irish  Volunteers  were 
able  without  difficulty  to  capture  the  machinery 
of  the  movement,  and  found  in  County  Wexford 
congenial  soil  for  the  development  of  their  pro 
paganda.  The  organisation  had  in  the  county 
seven  branches,  the  members  of  which  held 
weekly  and  bi-weekly  drills  and  route  marches, 
some  indoor  and  some  outdoor,  and  on  several 
occasions  paraded  in  public  under  arms.  The 
Volunteers,  the  most  active  of  whose  leaders  wera 
local  journalists,  were  from  time  to  time  visited 
by  P.  H.  Pearse,  and  by  some  of  the  regular 
organisers.  They  numbered  in  the  whole  county, 
at  the  time  of  the  insurrection,  rather  less  than 
a  thousand  men,  and  here,  as  elsewhere,  the  dis- 


184    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


proportion  of  armament  to  numerical  strength  was 
marked. 

On  Tuesday,  April  25th,  the  day  after  the  rising 
in  Dublin,  a  body  of  Volunteers  marched  into 
Enniscorthy,  the  local  headquarters  of  the  rebel- 
lious movement;  they  remained  the  night,  and 
dispersed  on  the  following  morning.  During  the 
day  a  despatch  rider  arrived  with  information 
from  the  Dublin  Headquarters  upon  the  situation 
in  the  capital,  and  at  dawn  on  the  next  day, 
Thursday,  April  27th,  the  rebels  took  possession 
of  Enniscorthy  by  surprise  and  without  opposi- 
tion. None  could  have  been  offered  in  any  case 
with  hope  of  success,  for  the  strength  of  the  rebels 
was  some  six  hundred  men,  of  whom  two  hundred 
were  armed  with  rifles  and  shot  guns,  while  the 
constabulary  force  in  the  whole  county  numbered 
little  more  than  two  hundred.  The  rebels  estab- 
lished their  headquarters  in  Enniscorthy  at  the 
Athenaeum,  and  pressed  citizens  into  service  as 
Irish  Republican  Police.  They  posted  sentries, 
and  allowed  no  one  to  enter  or  leave  the  town 
without  a  permit.  They  commandeered  motor 
cars,  food,  and  every  description  of  goods,  and 
searched  houses  exhaustively  for  arms.  The 
police  barrack,  which  was  surrounded  by  an  open 
space,  offering  a  good  field  of  fire,  was  held  by 
District  Inspector  and  five  constables;  the  bank, 
in  view  of  the  barrack,  was  held  by  a  sergeant  and 
one  man.  From  the  castle  on  the  hill  overlooking 
the  town,  of  which  they  had  taken  possession,  and 
from  the  slopes  of  Vinegar  Hill,  the  rebels  ex^ 
changed  shots  with  the  police.  No  attempt, 
however,  was  made  to  rush  the  barracks,  where 
the  police  held  out  until  the  arrival  of  military 
relief. 

With  Enniscorthy  in  their  possession,  the  rebels 
proceeded  to  develop  their  operations  northwards. 


IN  THE  PROVINCES 


155 


They  made  no  movement  southwards  towards  the 
town  of  Wexford,  fourteen  miles  distant,  where 
order  was  maintained  with  the  assistance  of  the 
National  Volunteers,  beyond  attempting,  with  but 
partial  success,  to  blow  up  the  bridge  of  Seara- 
walsh.  which  crosses  the  Slaney  on  the  main  road 
between  Enniscorthy  and  Wexford.  The  signal- 
ling wires  on  the  railway  were  also  cut,  and  the 
instruments  in  the  cabin  destroyed.  Northwards 
the  rebels  advanced  on  the  2^th  in  the  direction  of 
Ferns,  and  at  a  point  between  Enniscorthy  and 
that  place  entrenched  and  sent  scouts  forward. 
These  reported  no  military  forces  in  the  vicinity. 
The  rebels,  renewing  their  advance,  occupied  the 
town  of  Ferns.  On  the  following  day  they  pro- 
ceeded in  the  direction  of  Gorey,  having  as  their 
ultimate  objective  the  munitions  factor}'  at 
Arklow.  just  across  the  Wicklow  border.  Arklow 
was  at  this  time  inadequately  protected,  though 
later  a  military  force  was  landed  and  entrenched 
to  defend  the  munitions  factor}'.  The  County 
Wexford  rebels,  however,  who  were  of  a  less 
adventurous  disposition  than  their  forbears  of 
1795,  did  not  even  advance  as  far  towards  Arklow 
as  Gorey.  At  Camolin  Station,  a  short  distance 
north  of  Ferns,  they  met  a  train  containing  a  few 
soldiers.  These,  in  fact,  had  been  detailed  for 
ordinary  guard  duty  on  the  railway.  The  rebels, 
however,  believing  them  to  be  the  advanced  guard 
of  a  force  coming  up  from  Arklow,  retreated  pre- 
cipitately, evacuating  Ferns,  and  retired  upon 
Enniscorthy. 

In  the  meantime  measures  for  the  suppression 
of  the  rising  in  County  Wexford  had  been  set  in 
motion.  A  military  force  consisting  of  eleven 
hundred  foot  and  seventy  cavalry,  with  a  4.7  inch 
gun.  was  organised  at  Wexford,  and  despatched 
northwards  with  a  view  to  engaging  the  rebels  at 


186    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Enniscorthy.  The  force  was  accompanied  by  the 
first  armoured  train  ever  employed  in  Ireland.  It 
was  a  home-made  fighting  machine,  slung  together 
hastily,  but  effectively,  of  materials  to  hand.  It 
consisted  of  an  ancient  but  still  serviceable  engine, 
to  which  two  or  three  steel  trucks  were  coupled, 
armoured  with  hastily  pierced  sheets  of  iron.  Upon 
this  contrivance,  which  was  painted  slate  colour, 
was  mounted  the  fifteen  pounder  gun,  familiarly 
known  to  her  crew  as  "  Enniscorthy  Emily." 

At  the  approach  of  the  military  force  from  the 
south,  the  rebels  evacuated  the  town  of  Ennis- 
corthy, and  took  up  their  position  on  Vinegar 
Hill,  an  eminence  rising  over  Enniscorthy  at  the 
opposite  side  of  the  Slaney,  and  the  scene  of  the 
desperate  encounter  in  the  Rebellion  of  1798.  In 
that  rebellion,  the  encampment  on  Vinegar  Hill 
was  the  chief  rebel  station,  being  flanked  by  two 
others,  Carrickbyrne  Hill,  eight  miles  from  NewT 
Ross  on  the  road  to  Wexford,  and  Carrigroe  Hill, 
four  miles  east  of  Ferns.  Vinegar  Hill  in  '98  was 
held  from  about  the  end  of  May  until  the  21st  of 
June,  when  it  was  attacked  by  General  Lake  with 
twenty  thousand  men  operating  in  converging 
columns.  One  of  these  columns,  that  of  General 
Needham,  failed  to  reach  its  station  at  the  proper 
time.  The  other  columns  attacked  the  encamp- 
ment, where  the  rebels,  although  they  were  almost 
without  ammunition,  and  their  ranks  were  decim- 
ated by  a  heavy  fire  of  grape  and  musketry, 
maintained  the  unequal  fight  for  nearly  two  hours, 
after  which  they  made  good  their  escape  to 
Wexford,  by  way  of  what  came  to  be  called 
"  Needham 's  Gap." 

Before  action  was  joined  on  this  historic  ground, 
however,  news  arrived  from  Dublin  of  the  sur- 
render in  the  capital  and  the  order  of  P.  H.  Pearse 
to  his  followers  in  the  country  to  lay  down  their 


IN  THE  PROVINCES 


187 


arms.  The  leader  of  the  rebels  at  Enniscorthv. 
a  journalist  named  Etchingham,  was  permitted  to 
proceed  to  Dublin  in  a  motor  car  under  escort  to 
verify  the  information,  and  in  the  meantime  a 
truce  prevailed.  Upon  his  return  on  the  night  of 
April  30th ,  he  and  his  colleagues  attempted  to  open 
negotiations  with  the  military  on  the  basis  that 
they  should  surrender  themselves  and  all  arms, 
on  condition  that  their  followers  were  allowed  to 
return  to  their  homes.  They  were  informed  that 
the  only  terms  acceptable  were  unconditional  sur- 
render. Al  dawn  on  May  1st  the  rebels  appeared 
to  be  contemplating  resistance,  but  the  negotia- 
tions for  surrender  were  stimulated  by  the  dis- 
charge from  "'Enniscorthv  Emilv of  a  blank 
shell,  and  white  flags  were  promptly  run  up  on 
Vinegar  Hill.  Some  of  the  rebels,  whose  members 
by  this  time  were  reduced  to  about  four  hundred, 
attempted  to  escape  to  the  hills,  but  were  rounded 
up  and  captured  with  those  who  surrendered. 
After  the  capitulation,  the  military  and  police 
seized  in  the  Enniscorthv  district  forty-six  rifles, 
sixty-six  shot  guns,  eight  pistols,  six  revolvers,  a 
bomb,  twentv-one  and  a  half  stone  of  blasting 
powder,  six  hundred  and  sixty-seven  rounds  of 
sporting  ammunition,  four  thousand  and  sixty- 
seven  rounds  of  rifle  and  machine  ammunition, 
and  a  quantity  of  gelignite  and  other  explosives ; 
the  rifles  were  mostly  of  German  pattern,  and 
among  the  ammunition  was  a  quantity  of  soft- 
nosed  bullets. 

In  the  neighbouring  County  of  Kilkenny  no 
actual  outbreak  occurred,  but  the  Volunteers  were 
mobilised,  and  certain  military  precautions  had 
to  be  taken.  In  County  Kilkenny  the  Volunteer 
movement  was  started  in  March,  1914,  at  a  meet- 
ing held  in  Kilkenny  City,  which  was  addressed 
by  Roger  Casement  and  Thomas  MacDonagli. 


188    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


After  the  split  between  the  Volunteer  bodies,  one 
of  the  Irish  Volunteers  paid  organisers  arrived  in 
Kilkenny,  in  April,  1915,  and  from  this  time  the 
seditious  organisation  showed  much  activity  and 
began  to  spread  over  the  country  districts.  Kil- 
kenny was  a  county  which  had  supplied  large 
numbers  of  recruits  for  the  Army,  and  the  number 
of  Volunteers  in  the  whole  county  did  not  exceed 
three  hundred.  What  they  lacked  in  numbers, 
however,  they  made  good  in  efficiency,  being  per- 
haps the  best  drilled  and  best  armed  body  of 
Volunteers  in  the  provinces. 

During  the  week  of  the  Rebellion,  though  they 
did  not  rise,  their  activity  engaged  the  close  atten- 
tion and  aroused  the  anxiety  of  the  police.  On 
Easter  Monday,  in  Kilkenny  City,  they  moved 
about  in  groups — without  arms — and  in  an  obvious 
state  of  excitement.  In  the  afternoon  they 
attended  at  the  railway  station,  apparently  for 
the  purpose  of  receiving  some  information  which, 
however,  did  not  arrive.  Their  cyclists  were  also 
very  active,  going  out  into  the  country,  and  one  of 
their  number  who  owned  a  motor  car  moved  fre- 
quently about  the  county.  The  County  Inspector 
of  Royal  Irish  Constabulary  took  prompt  steps  to 
assemble  as  many  armed  men  as  possible,  and  by 
the  morning  of  Wednesday,  April  26th,  had  con- 
centrated seventy  under  his  command.  On  the 
following  day  he  observed  heliograph  signalling 
in  progress  from  Mount  Leinster,  on  the  border  of 
County  Wexford  and  County  Carlo w,  which  over- 
looks Enniscorthy,  and  answering  signals  from  a 
northerly  direction.  A  Constabulary  force  was 
hurried  to  protect  the  Barrow  Bridge  between 
County  Wexford  and  County  Waterford,  by  which 
troops  from  the  south  would  be  railed  up  to  Wex- 
ford; its  protection  was  subsequently  taken  over 
by  the  military.     These  precautions  effectually 


EN  THE  PROVINCES 


189 


prevented  a  rising  in  County  Kilkenny.  After  the 
suppression  of  the  Rebellion,  the  police  raided  the 
local  Volunteer  hall,,  but  discovered  only  a  number 
of  bayonets  and  pikes.  The  Volunteers''  rifles, 
which  were  of  modern  magazine  pattern,  mostly 
Enfields,  and  their  ammunition,  had  been  con- 
cealed, and  were  not  surrendered. 

In  County  Galway  the  rebel  centre  was  the  town 
of  Athenry,  which  since  1S^2  had  been  the  head- 
quarters of  a  secret  society  associated  with  the 
Clan-na-Gael  in  the  United  States.  In  this  con- 
gested district,  celebrated  in  the  annals  of  Irish 
agrarian  troubles,  the  Volunteer  organisers  had 
no  difficulty  in  gaining  adherents.  The  original 
Volunteer  movement  was  established  in  Galway 
City  at  a  meeting  addressed  by  Casement,  Pearse, 
MacNeill  and  a  Galway  man  named  Nicholls. 
After  the  split,  the  seditious  movement  was 
actively  organised  throughout  1915  by  William 
Mellowes,  who,  after  his  deportation,  returned  to 
lead  the  rising.  The  Irish  Volunteers  drew  their 
support  chiefly  from  farmers'  sons  and  labourers; 
thev  had  little  following  in  Galway  City,  which 
had  recruited  very  well  for  the  Army.  In  the  coun- 
try districts  seditious  publications  enjoyed  a  large 
circulation.  The  police  said  they  noticed  that 
people  not  normally  prosperous  had  a  good  deal 
of  money  to  spend.  The  number  of  Volunteers  in 
the  county  at  the  time  of  the  outbreak  was  over  a 
thousand.  Less  than  a  quarter  of  this  number, 
however,  were  armed  with  rifles  or  shot  guns.  The 
majority  of  the  insurgents  employed  the  favourite 
weapon  of  the  Rebellion  of  1798 — the  pike.  In 
another  respect  the  rising  in  Galway  in  1916  re- 
produced the  conditions  of  the  rising  in  Wexford 
in  1798.  Most  of  the  rebels  were  a  type  of  men 
who  did  not  take  kindly  to  military  discipline,  and 
in  their  case  nothing  approximating  to  the  state 


190   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


of  organisation  and  training  that  obtained  else- 
where in  the  provinces  had  been  reached.  The 
rising  in  Galway  in  1916,  like  the  rising  in  Wex- 
ford in  1798,  was  less  in  the  nature  of  a  movement 
by  a  military  force,  such  as  that  in  the  Dublin  dis- 
trict and  in  County  Wexford,  than  in  the  nature 
of  an  outbreak  by  an  ill-armed  and  undisciplined 
rabble. 

To  make  the  history  of  this  somewhat  amor- 
phous rising  coherent,  it  is  convenient  to  separate 
the  operations  in  the  West  Riding  and  the  East 
Riding  of  County  Galway  respectively.  In  the 
West  Riding  the  Rebellion  began  soon  after  day- 
break on  Tuesday,  April  25th,  with  an  attack  on 
the  police  barracks  at  Gort,  nine  and  a  half  miles 
south-east  of  Galway.  The  barrack  was  defended 
and  held  for  three  hours  by  five  policemen  against 
a  body  of  rebels  who  numbered  about  one  hundred 
at  the  outset  and  received  reinforcements  during 
the  fight.  Finally  the  rebels  withdrew  to  Claren- 
bridge,  where  they  were  further  reinforced.  Mean- 
while another  body  of  rebels,  shortly  after  noon, 
began  an  attack  on  the  barracks  at  Oranmore, 
some  four  miles  east  of  Galway.  They  cut  the 
telegraph  lines,  tore  up  the  railway,  and  blasted 
a  large  hole  in  the  bridge.  The  barrack  at  Oran- 
more was  defended  by  four  policemen  during  the 
whole  afternoon  until  7.30  p.m.  when  the  County 
Inspector  with  a  force  of  Constabulary,  and  a  few- 
soldiers  from  Galway,  charged  up  the  barricaded 
street,  and  put  the  rebels  to  flight.  They  retreated 
m  the  direction  of  Athenry,  some  in  motor  cars 
which  had  been  held  up  and  seized  during  the  day. 
Ten  were  taken  prisoners,  and  placed  on  board 
ship  in  Galway  Bay. 

On  the  following  day,  April  26th,  the  rebel 
bodies  in  the  West  Riding  concentrated  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Oranmore  to  the  number  of  about 


IN  THE  PROVINCES  191 


four  hundred,  and  began  a  march  upon  Galway 
City.  Three  neighbouring  barracks  had  in  the 
meantime  been  closed,  and  the  police  withdrawn 
to  Galway.  The  total  force  available,  however, 
was  small,  and  many  of  the  men  had  seen  ex- 
hausting service  on  the  previous  day.  One  party 
of  police  was  nevertheless  sent  out  along  the  Oran- 
more  Road,  and  another  on  the  Tuam  Road,  as  it 
was  uncertain  by  which  route  the  rebels  would 
attack  the  city.  In  Galway  special  constables 
were  sworn  in  and  armed  with  every  available  fire- 
arm, and  all  possible  preparations  were  made  for 
defence.  The  prospects  of  holding  the  town  against 
the  rebels  were  apparently  small;  but  for  the 
second  time  in  the  Rebellion  there  was  a  dramatic 
intervention  of  sea-power  at  the  critical  moment. 
A  sloop  of  war,  steaming  up  the  Bay,  turned  its 
guns  on  the  rebels,  who  had  taken  cover  on  a  hill 
to  engage  the  police. The  first  shell  bursting  on  the 
hill  decided  the  situation;  the  rebels  retreated 
precipitately  back  towards  Oranmore.  Later  in  the 
day  a  force  of  two  hundred  troops  was  landed  at 
Galway.  At  dawn  on  the  following  morning,  April 
27th,  a  mixed  force  of  military  and  police  moved 
out  of  the  town  and  were  met  by  a  considerable 
party  of  rebels  at  Cahermore  Cross-roads.  A  sharp 
encounter  took  place  in  which  one  constable  was 
shot  dead  and  others  wounded,  and  the  rebels  were 
put  to  flight  with  some  loss.  Their  main  body  had 
already  retired  to  the  old  ruined  Castle  of  Moy- 
vore,  in  the  wild  country  between  Craughwell  and 
Loughrea. 

Meanwhile  in  the  East  Riding  the  first  in- 
timation the  police  had  of  the  outbreak  was  on 
Tuesday,  April  25th,  when  word  came  in  that  near 
Moyvore  a  constable  had  been  shot  and  seriously 
wounded.  On  the  same  day  the  rebels  in  Athenry 
seized  and  established  their  headquarters  at  the 


192    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Town  Hall,  where  they  made  bombs  during  the 
night.  No  attack  was  made  on  the  barracks  at 
Athenry,  where  the  police  had  been  reinforced. 
On  the  following  morning  they  moved  out  about 
two  miles  to  a  farm  belonging  to  the  Department 
of  Agriculture,  where  they  remained  for  the  night. 
On  Thursday,  April  27th,  having  torn  up  the 
railway  line,  cut  the  telegraph  wires,  and  com- 
mandeered foodstuffs,  they  marched  to  Moyvore. 
Here  the  combined  strength  of  the  rebel  forces 
from  the  East  and  West  Ridings  totalled  about  a 
thousand. 

On  Friday,  April  28th,  military  went  out  from 
Galway  to  Athenry,  and  closed  in  upon  the  rebel 
encampment  from  the  north.  To  the  south  the 
police  of  the  district,  reinforced  by  two  hundred 
extra  men  from  Belfast,  were  concentrated  at 
Loughrea.  By  this  time  extensive  desertions  from 
the  rebel  force  had  begun,  and,  as  it  seemed  likely 
that  an  encounter  could  be  avoided,  efforts  were 
made  to  induce  them  to  disperse.  To  these  efforts 
a  local  priest  lent  his  good  offices.  A  contest  for 
the  decision  ensued  between  him  and  Mellowes, 
who  was  strongly  in  favour  of  resistance.  Finally 
the  priest  prevailed,  and  the  rebels  disbanded. 
Subsequently  some  five  hundred  arrests  were  made, 
and  the  majority  of  the  men  arrested  were  de- 
ported to  England.  Twelve  of  the  men  most 
prominent  in  the  Galway  rising  were  tried  by 
Field  General  Court-martial  and  sentenced  to 
varying  terms  of  imprisonment.  Mellowes,  after 
remaining  in  hiding  for  some  time,  finally  suc- 
ceeded in  making  good  his  escape  from  Ireland. 

In  the  neighbouring  County  of  Clare,  the 
default  of  a  rising  was  directly  traceable  to  the 
interception  of  the  Casement  expedition.  In 
this  county  the  active  Volunteers  numbered 
about  four  hundred;  but  Clare  had  a  bad  re- 


IN  THE  PROVINCES 


193 


cord  for  agrarian  crime,  and  the  County 
Inspector,  in  his  evidence  before  the  Royal  Com- 
mission on  the  Rebellion,  gave  it  as  his  opinion 
that  sympathy  with  the  seditious  movement  was 
so  extensive  that,  in  the  event  of  a  rising,  the 
number  of  insurgents  would  have  been  swollen  to 
at  least  twelve  hundred.  The  Clare  Volunteers, 
who  conducted  themselves  during  the  year  before 
the  Rebellion  in  a  most  aggressive  fashion,  and 
excited  the  people  by  marching  under  arms, 
were  well  drilled,  and,  in  some  cases,  uniformed. 
They  practised  shooting  with  miniature  rifles. 
With  these  and  with  shot  guns  they  were  well 
provided,  but  they  were  quite  inadequately  armed 
in  respect  of  rifles,  the  total  number  of  which  in 
the  county  was  estimated  by  the  police  at  no  more 
than  about  thirty-five.  Immediately  before  the 
rising  there  was  great  activity  on  the  part  of  the 
Volunteer  organisers  in  Clare.  On  Easter  Sunday 
the  Volunteers  massed  in  considerable  numbers 
along  the  banks  of  the  Shannon  in  the  evident 
anticipation  of  the  landing  of  arms  from  the  Kerry 
side  of  the  river.  The  arms,  of  course,  did  not 
arrive,  with  the  result  that  there  was  no  actual 
rising  in  Clare.  The  County,  however,  especially 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Ennis,  and  the  district 
about  the  railway  between  that  place  and  the  City 
of  Limerick,  remained  during  the  week  in  such  a 
disturbed  condition  that  measures  were  taken  to 
put  Limerick  in  a  state  of  defence  against  attack 
from  the  Clare  side.  All  the  approaches  to 
Limerick  were  patrolled  by  military  and  police, 
and  the  bridges  leading  into  the  city  from  Clare 
were  fortified  with  barricades  and  implacements 
for  machine  guns  to  resist  attack.  This  state  of 
tension  in  the  City  of  Limerick — no  disturbance 
occurred  in  the  county,  where  the  Volunteer 
strength  was  small — continued  throughout  the 


194    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


week  until  the  surrender  in  Dublin.  After  that 
surrender  an  extensive  search  for  arms  was  made 
by  the  police  in  the  County  Clare,  with  small 
result,  except  at  Listowel,  where  the  Volunteers 
gave  up  their  arms  in  a  body. 

Similarly  in  County  Kerry  the  miscarriage  of 
the  Casement  expedition  effectively  prevented  an 
actual  outbreak.  The  history  of  the  seditious 
movement  in  Kerry  is  worth  tracing  in  some 
detail,  in  the  first  place  because  it  supplied  an 
epitome  of  the  development  of  events  in  Ireland 
generally,  and  in  the  next  place  because  German 
connection  with  it  was  here  definite  and  unmis- 
takeable.  Sir  Morgan  O'Connell,  a  descendant 
of  Daniel  O'Connell,  "  the  Liberator,"  and  a 
popular  landowner,  with  a  long  association 
with  the  county,  gave  evidence  on  these  points 
before  the  Royal  Commission.  In  August,  1914, 
on  the  outbreak  of  war,  the  County  of  Kerry  was 
absolutely  peaceful.  A  good  number  of  National 
Volunteers  were  carrying  out  drills  and  route 
marches,  mostly  on  Sundays.  These  bodies  were 
always  well  conducted  on  the  roads,  and  con- 
siderate for  other  traffic.  The  vast  majority  of 
Kerry  men  were  in  complete  sympathy  with  Great 
Britain  in  the  war.  Considerable  numbers  in  the 
towns  of  the  county  enlisted  in  the  Army,  and 
these  included  many  Volunteers.  The  Volunteers 
generally  assisted  recruiting,  in  many  cases 
marching  with  their  bands  to  the  local  railway 
stations  to  send  off  reservists  and  recruits.  At  this 
time  there  was  not  many  arms  in  the  county.  These 
conditions  persisted  as  late  as  May  1915,  when 
the  Band  of  the  Irish  Guards  visited  Killarney 
for  recruiting  purposes,  and  met  with  an  excellent 
reception. 

In  that  month,  however,  a  sweeping  change 
occurred  in  the  situation.    The  Irish  Volunteer 


IN  THE  PROVINCES 


195 


headquarters  in  Dublin  decided  to  capture  Kerry, 
and  realised  that  in  the  state  of  the  county  a  spec- 
tacular method  was  necessary  to  achieve  this 
object.  It  had  already  been  carrying  on  pro- 
pagandist work  on  a  limited  scale,  and  with  little 
success.  Now  it  organised  a  monster  demonstra- 
tion to  be  held  in  Killarney  on  May  23rd.  The 
holding  of  the  meeting  was  advertised  throughout 
the  county,  and  John  MacNeill  was  billed  to  de- 
liver a  speech  and  enlist  recruits  for  the  "  Army 
of  Ireland."  The  meeting  was  to  be  held 
immediately  after  some  Gaelic  Athletic  Sports, 
which  were  the  ostensible  object  of  the  gathering. 
The  police  warned  the  Irish  Government  of  the 
purpose  of  the  demonstration,  and  stated  that  it 
was  plainly  anti-recruiting  and  seditious.  Sir 
Morgan  O'Connell  on  May  22nd — the  Saturday 
previous  to  the  Sunday  meeting — telegraphed  to  the 
Lord  Lieutenant:  "  A  meeting  under  auspices  of 
Sinn  Fein  party  is  to  be  held  here  to-morrow,  call- 
ing itself  a  football  match,  but  with  the  perfectly 
open  and  avowed  intention  of  being  turned  into  an 
anti-recruiting  meeting.  Will  Your  Excellency  do 
anything  to  stop  this?"  He  received  a  reply  to  the 
effect  that  "  Lord  Lieutenant  was  not  advised  to 
prevent  the  meeting  from  taking  place."  He  also 
telegraphed  to  the  Central  Recruiting  Committee, 
which  had  been  in  constant  correspondence  with 
him  about  recruiting  in  Kerry,  that,  if  this  meet- 
ing were  held,  recruiting  in  Kerry  would  be  killed. 
The  meeting  was,  nevertheless,  held,  and  John 
MacNeill  delivered  at  it  a  strong  speech  for 
the  Volunteers.  There  were  five  special  trains 
at  cheap  fares  to  Killarney,  bringing  thousands 
of  country  people  to  hear  the  speech,  as  well  as 
some  five  hundred  armed  Volunteers,  who  paraded 
the  streets,  while  the  countryside  for  ten  miles 
round  flocked  into  the  town. 


196   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


After  this  imposing  demonstration  of  the 
strength  of  the  Volunteer  movement  and  the  im- 
potence of  the  Government,  "  Sinn  Feinism,"  in 
Sir  Morgan  O'Connell's  words,  "  spread  in  Kerry 
like  fire  on  a  mountain.' '  Branches  of  the  Irish 
Volunteers  were  actively  organised,  and  their 
strength  rapidly  increased.  The  county  was  fre- 
quently visited  by  various  members  of  the  Dublin 
headquarters,  and  was  flooded  with  seditious 
papers  and  pamphlets.  Large  quantities  of  arms 
and  ammunition  found  their  way  into  the  county ; 
in  some  districts  house-to-house  collections  were 
made  for  the  purpose  of  purchasing  arms.  Re- 
cruiting meetings  for  the  Army  still  continued  to 
be  held,  but  the  forces  against  recruiting  became 
more  and  more  hostile,  and  Sir  Morgan  O'Con- 
nell's prediction  was  completely  justified  by  the 
event.  By  September  1915  the  Volunteers  carriei 
out  a  good  deal  of  skirmishing  throughout  the 
country  and  also  practised  night  manoeuvres, 
much  to  the  terror  of  the  people  of  Kerry.  In  the 
next  month  a  deputation  waited  on  the  Listowel 
Race  Committee  and  induced  it  to  rescind  a  de- 
cision to  give  a  penny  in  the  shilling  of  the  receipts 
to  the  Royal  Munster  Fusiliers'  Fund.  By 
February  1916  there  were  eighteen  branches,  with 
a  membership  of  more  than  one  thousand  two 
hundred.  During  the  month  an  organiser  from 
Dublin  was  giving  instruction  in  the  use  of  the 
rifle  and  revolver  in  the  west  coast  districts,  and 
special  instruction  was  also  given  in  bayonet  ex- 
ercise and  skirmishing. 

The  County  Inspector  of  Royal  Irish  Constabu- 
lary, who  had  constantly  kept  the  Government 
supplied  with  information  on  which  it  refused  to 
act,  fully  appreciated  the  gravity  of  the  situation 
when  news  of  the  pending  arrival  of  the  Casement 


IN  THE  PROVINCES 


197 


expedition  was  received,  and  took  prompt  steps 
to  cope  with  the  emergency.  He  followed  up  the 
arrest  of  Casement,  on  the  morning  of  Good 
Friday,  April  21st,  by  arresting  Austin  Stack,  the 
local  leader  of  the  Volunteers,  who  was  subse- 
quently tried  by  Court-martial  and  sentenced  to 
penal  servitude  for  life.  On  the  same  day  he 
telegraphed  for  extra  police  for  Tralee,  and  these 
came  in  from  outlying  stations.  Extra  men  were 
at  once  placed  at  Valentia  Island  and  Waterville 
to  patrol  the  cable  stations.  The  County  Inspector 
also  got  into  communication  with  the  General 
Officer  Commanding  at  Queenstown,  requesting 
the  despatch  of  a  military  force.  A  force  of  a 
hundred  soldiers,  who  were  later  reinforced,  were 
promptly  despatched  by  train,  and  arrived  in 
Kerry  early  on  the  morning  of  Saturday,  April 
22nd.  In  the  meantime  more  than  300  Volunteers 
had  mobilised  in  Tralee  with  the  evident  intention 
of  assisting  in  the  landing  of  arms.  But  the  arrest 
of  Casement  and  Stack,  who  was  in  complete 
charge  of  the  local  plans,  and  the  arrival  of  troops 
from  Queenstown  and  of  extra  police  from  the 
country  acted  as  a  sufficient  deterrent.  The  Volun- 
teers at  Tralee  took  no  overt  action,  and  those  of 
them  who  had  come  from  the  country  districts 
gradually  left  for  their  homes.  Elsewhere  the 
show  of  force  was  adequate  to  prevent  an  outbreak 
No  disturbance  occured  in  the  county  except  at 
Firies,  near  Killarney,  where  two  police  con- 
stables posting  the  proclamation  of  martial  law 
were  shot  and  seriously  wounded.  After  the 
suppression  of  the  Rebellion  wholesale  arrests 
were  effected  throughout  the  County  Kerry. 

A  remarkable  feature  of  the  Rebellion  in  the 
provinces  was  the  absence  of  an  outbreak  in  the 
City  of  Cork — "  rebel  Cork  " — a  stronghold  of 


198   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


the  Irish  Volunteers.  Apparently  the  rebels  in 
Cork  did  not  receive,  until  it  was  too  late  for  them 
to  take  action,  news  of  the  rising  in  Dublin, 
whither  some  of  their  members  were  believed  to 
have  gone  between  Good  Friday  and  Easter 
Monday  to  take  part  in  the  Dublin  operations. 
When  the  news  of  events  in  the  capital  reached 
Cork  the  local  Volunteers  proposed  to  follow  the 
example  of  the  Dublin  rebels  and  seize  the  General 
Post  Office;  but  in  the  meantime  the  military, 
under  the  orders  of  an  officer  more  alert,  had  occu- 
pied this  building  and  other  important  points. 
The  Volunteers,  frustrated  in  their  design,  stood 
to  arms  doing  the  work  in  their  headquarters, 
where  they  were  visited  by  the  Roman  Catholic 
Bishop  and  the  Lord  Mayor,  whose  appeals  to 
them  to  lay  down  their  arms  were  unavailing.  No 
collision  with  the  troops  occurred,  however,  and 
upon  the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion  elsewhere 
the  Cork  Volunteers,  after  negotiation,  surren- 
dered their  arms. 

In  the  County  of  Cork  a  general  parade  of 
Volunteers  was  held  on  Easter  Sunday,  April 
23rd.  They  were  ordered  to  be  fully  equipped, 
to  take  two  days'  rations,  and  to  march  to 
various  named  destinations — all  situated  in  the 
the  direction  of  County  Kerry.  When  it  was 
discovered  that  the  sinking  of  the  German  arms 
ship  had  frustrated  their  obvious  intention  of 
taking  over  arms  from  her,  they  returned  to  their 
respective  places  of  assembly,  where  they  re- 
mained mobilised  during  the  week.  No  disturb- 
ance, however,  took  place  in  the  County  of  Cork, 
with  the  exception  of  an  affray  in  the  Fermoy 
district,  where  the  police  in  attempting  to  effect 
arrests  in  the  house  of  a  family  named  Kent  were 
met  with  armed  resistance,  and  the  Head  Con- 


IN  THE  PROVINCES  199 


stable  was  shot  dead.  On  the  arrival  of  military 
reinforcements,  the  occupants  of  the  house,  all  of 
whom  were  wounded,  surrendered.  One  who 
attempted  to  escape  was  shot  and  killed ;  another 
was  subsequently  tried  by  Court-martial  for  the 
murder  of  the  Head  Constable  and  executed. 

The  rest  of  the  South  of  Ireland  was  quiet 
throughout  the  week  of  the  Rebellion.  Some  un- 
rest was  apparent  in  Belfast  and  the  southern 
districts  of  Ulster,  and  early  in  the  week  the 
police,  acting  under  military  instructions,  made  a 
large  number  of  domiciliary  visits  in  the  city  and 
suburbs  of  Belfast,  arresting  some  thirty  persons 
suspected  of  being  connected  with  the  rebellious 
movement.  Though  the  situation  in  Ulster 
throughout  was  officially  described  as  "  normal," 
a  serious  outbreak  threatened  in  County  Tyrone, 
and  prompt  military  measures  were  organised  in 
Belfast  to  prevent  a  rising.  Observations  of  the 
movements  of  some  local  Sinn  Fein  sympathisers 
prompted  the  conclusion  that  secret  mobilisation 
might  be  in  prospect  in  the  mountains  of  Mid- 
Tyrone.  The  military  authorities  in  Belfast  issued 
an  immediate  appeal  for  motor  transport,  and 
within  an  hour,  with  the  aid  of  civilian  organisa- 
tion and  that  of  the  Ulster  Volunteers,  over  a 
hundred  vehicles  were  placed  at  their  disposal. 
A  flying  column  of  300  men  was  thus  despatched 
on  Tuesday,  April  25th,  to  Dungannon,  where 
post  office,  telegraph  and  telephone  business  was 
prohibited,  and  to  Cappagh,  where  a  guard  was 
mounted  on  the  reservoir.  The  column  pushed  on 
to  Carrickmore,  where  a  search  for  concealed  guns 
revealed  three  thousand  rounds  of  ammunition  in 
cases  and  bandoliers.  For  the  remainder  of  the 
week  military  and  police  in  motor  transport  were 
actively  engaged  in  rounding  up  Volunteers  in 


200    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


various  parts  of  Ulster,  and  some  three  hundred 
arrests  were  effected. 

In  the  three  Southern  Provinces  during  the  week 
after  Easter  Week  flying  columns  similarly  pro- 
ceeded to  various  points  to  stimulate  surrenders. 
No  opposition  was  encountered  in  the  course  of 
these  measures  of  pacification.  On  Tuesday,  May 
2nd,  Sir  John  Maxwell  issued  an  order  that  "  all 
members  of  the  Irish  Volunteer  Sinn  Fein  organi- 
sation, or  of  the  Citizen  Army,  shall  forthwith 
surrender  all  arms,  ammunition  and  explosives  in 
their  possession  to  the  nearest  Military  Authority 
or  to  the  nearest  Police  Station."  Despite  the  fact 
that  this  order  proceeded  to  declare  that  any 
member  found  in  possession  of  arms  or  explosives 
after  May  6th  would  be  severely  dealt  with,  and 
despite  the  closest  search,  only  about  thirty  per 
cent,  of  the  amount  of  arms  and  explosives  known 
to  be  in  the  possession  of  the  seditious  organisa- 
tions throughout  the  country  was  surrendered. 

The  Rebellion,  now  suppressed,  though,  as  later 
events  were  to  show,  its  members  were  not  yet 
quenched,  had  cost  a  heavy  toll  of  life.  The  mili- 
tary casualties,  as  reported  by  Sir  John  Maxwell 
in  his  despatch,  totalled  17  officers  killed  and  46 
wounded,  and  89  other  ranks  killed  and  288 
wounded.  In  addition,  naval  casualties  were  one 
killed  and  two  wounded,  and  six  loyal  Volunteers 
killed  and  ten  wounded.  Police  casualties  num- 
bered two  officers  and  twelve  men  killed,  and 
twenty-three  men  wounded  in  the  case  of  the  Royal 
Irish  Constabulary,  and  three  men  killed  and  three 
wounded  in  the  case  of  the  Dublin  Metropolitan 
Police.  According  to  the  reports  received  from 
the  police  and  medical  authorities,  180  civilians 
were  killed,  and  614  wounded  passed  through  the 
hospitals.    These  figures,  doubtless,  included  a 


IN  THE  PROVINCES  201 


certain  percentage  of  the  rebel  casualties,  which, 
in  the  conditions  of  the  fighting,  were  not  ascer- 
tainable with  any  degree  of  accuracy;  the  rebels' 
losses,  it  may  be  presumed,  since  they  fought  for 
the  most  part  behind  cover,  were  substantially  less 
than  the  military. 


CHAPTER  XI. 


THE  AFTEKMATH  OF  EEBELLION 

It  is  probably  no  exaggeration  to  say  that,  im- 
mediately after  the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion, 
Home  Rulers  an'd  Unionists  alike,  apart  from  the 
passively  and  actively  seditious  groups  now  sub- 
merged and  impotent,  were  prepared  for,  and 
would  have  welcomed,  a  period  of  what,  in  the 
convention  of  Unionist  politics,  is  called  "  firm 
government."  While  there  were  many  who  ad- 
mired the  courage  of  the  enterprise,  its  aftermath 
left  those  who  had  taken  part  in  it  with  no  open 
supporters  in  the  vocal  body  of  the  Irish  people. 
The  social  and  economic  life  of  Dublin,  though  it 
began  to  recover  with  remarkable  rapidity,  was 
for  the  moment  completely  disjointed.  The  actual 
loss  of  property  in  the  Rebellion  was  estimated  at 
two  and  a  half  million  pounds,  and  the  consequen- 
tial damage  was,  of  course,  enormously  greater. 
Great  numbers  of  people  were  thrown  out  of  work, 
though  the  task  of  clearing  the  ruins,  strengthen- 
ing buildings  whose  fabrics  had  been  weakened  or 
damaged,  and  restoring  the  civic  services,  relieved 
to  a  considerable  extent  the  volume  of  unemploy- 
ment. In  the  provinces,  though  the  destruction  of 
property  had  not  been  extensive,  the  normal  course 
of  industry  and  commerce  had  been  completely 
interrupted;  in  particular  agriculture,  the  staple 
industry  of  Ireland,  which  was  enjoying  a  vastly 
swollen  prosperity  in  consequence  of  the  war,  had 
been  brought  to  a  standstill  so  far  as  the  export 
of  stock  and  produce  was  concerned  as  a  result 
of  the  suspension  of  all  ordinary  communication 
facilities  while  troop  movements  were  in  progress. 


AFTERMATH  OF  REBELLION  203 


On  the  one  hand,  therefore,  the  loss  of  life  and 
the  damage  to  their  material  prosperity  in  which 
it  had  involved  them  were  scarcely  calculated  to 
engage  the  sympathy  of  the  Irish  people  for  the 
authors  of  the  Rebellion.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
regime  of  martial  law  produced  in  commercial 
circles  a  sense  of  security  which,  after  some  three 
years'  experience  of  the  utmost  unsettlement  and 
instability  in  the  conditions  of  Irish  life,  was  by 
no  means  unwelcome.  _ 
A  variety  of  causes,  however,  conspired  to 
defeat  the  prospect  that  the  Rebellion  would 
rapidly  become  an  unhappy  incident  of  the  past 
in  Irish  history,  and  to  turn  a  great  volume  of  Irish 
opinion  into  a  channel  of  emotional  sympathy  with 
the  rebels  and  of  strong  hostility  to  the  British 
connexion.  In  the  first  place,  the  Government, 
presumably  with  the  object  of  reassuring  British 
and  Allied  opinion,  made  no  attempt  to  explain 
the  real  gravity  of  the  Rebellion,  but  rather  in- 
spired the  English  Press  to  treat  it  merely  as  a  sort 
of  street  riot  on  an  extensive  scale.  To  that  unin- 
telligent attitude  of  the  British  Government  may 
ultimately  be  traced  many  of  the  troubles  which 
followed  upon  the  Rebellion.  Its  policy  of  mini- 
mising the  gravity  of  the  Rebellion  inevitably 
threw  into  disproportionately  high  relief  the 
punishment  inflicted  on  the  leaders  of  the  rising, 
and  the  measures  taken  for  the  pacification  of 
Ireland.  Whether  that  punishment  and  these 
measures  were  excessive,  judged  by  the  standard 
of  the  facts  of  the  situation,  is  one  question,  which 
this  historical  survey  is  not  concerned  to  answer. 
Whether  the  gloss  which  the  Government  put  upon 
the  facts  of  the  situation  by  depreciating  the 
gravity  of  the  outbreak  did  not  make  them  appear 
excessive  to  a  large  section  of  the  Irish  public  is 
another  question,  which  admits  of  but  one  answer. 


204   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


On  Wednesday,  May  3rd,  four  days  after  the 
surrender  of  the  rebels,  it  was  officially  announced 
in  Dublin  that  "  three  signatories  of  the  notice 
proclaiming  the  Irish  Republic,  P.  H.  Pearse,  T. 
MacDonagh,  and  T.  J.  Clarke,  have  been  tried  by 
Field  Court-Martfal  and  sentenced  to  death.  The 
sentence  having  been  duly  confirmed  the  three 
above-mentioned  men  were  shot  this  morning." 
That  brief  announcement  may  be  said  to  have 
begun  the  great  revulsion  of  Irish  National  feeling 
which  subsequently  swept  over  the  whole  country 
and  went  far  towards  securing  in  their  death  the 
objects  which  the  leaders  of  the  Rebellion  had 
failed  to  secure  in  their  lives.  It  was  not  so  much 
the  fact  of  the  executions  as  the  manner  of  them 
and  their  announcement  which  shocked  a  con- 
siderable section  of  the  Irish  public.  Had  the  rebel 
leaders  been  tried  in  public  even  by  a  Military 
Court ;  had  it  been  possible  to  try  them  all  while 
the  tragic  events  of  the  Rebellion  were  fresh  in 
the  public  mind;  had  their  association  with  Ger- 
many and  the  extreme  gravity  of  their  action  in 
relation  to  the  European  war  been  clearly  stated 
and  brought  home  to  the  Irish  people  which,  if 
the  sacrifice  of  soldiers  on  the  battlefields  of 
Europe  be  a  test,  had  unmistakably  proved  where 
lay  its  sympathies  in  the  war — had  such  a  course 
been  followed  the  executions,  while  they  might 
still  have  been  criticised,  would  probably  not  have 
produced  so  profound  a  stir  among  peaceable 
Nationalists.  It  was  the  bald  announcement  of 
the  executions,  following  upon  the  complete 
secrecy  which  invests  the  proceedings  of  "  drum- 
head "  Courts-martial,  with  no  statement  what- 
ever of  the  degree  of  guilt  which  justified  the 
infliction  of  the  capital  penalty,  that  aroused 
National  sentiment. 

The  effects  of  the  executions,  moreover,  were 


AFTERMATH  OF  REBELLION  205 


cumulative.  Day  by  day,  as  the  Rebellion  itself 
receded  more  and  more  into  memory,  day  by  day 
the  tale  of  executions  was  told  piecemeal.* 

On  Thursday,  May  4th,  a  curt  official  notice 
announced  the  executions  of  Joseph  Plunkett, 
Edmund  Daly,  Michael  Hanrahan,  and  William 
Pearse.  On  Friday,  May  5th,  followed  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  execution  of  John  MacBride. 
On  Saturday,  May  6th,  it  was  annomced  that 
Constance  Georgina  Marcievicz  and  Henry 
0' Hanrahan  had  been  sentenced  to  death,  but  that 
the  sentence  had  been  commuted  to  penal  servitude 
for  life  by  the  General  Officer  Commanding-in- 
Chief .  In  numerous  cases  Sir  John  Maxwell  ex- 
ercised clemency  in  commuting  death  sentences 
to  varying  terms  of  penal  servitude,  and  in  remit- 
ting portions  of  sentences  of  penal  servitude;  but 
the  daily  list  of  executions  in  the  eyes  of  the  grow- 
ing mass  of  Nationalist  opinion  quite  offset  the 
effects  of  this  clemency.  On  Monday,  May  8th, 
came  the  announcement  of  the  executions  of 
Cornelius  Colbert,  Edmund  Kent,  Michael  Mallin 
and  J.  J.  Heuston.  Three  of  these  were  quite 
unknown  names,  and  the  notice  added  that  they 
"  took  a  very  prominent  part  in  the  Rebellion." 
On  Wednesday,  May  10th,  the  execution  of 
Thomas  Kent  was  announced,  and  in  this  case  it 
was  specifically  stated  that  his  offence  was  the 
murder  of  a  police  constable  in  the  affray  near 
Fermoy.  It  was  not  until  Thursday,  May  11th, 
however,  that  there  was  added  to  a  further  list  of 

*  The  mood  of  Nationalist  sentiment  was  expressed  by 
Mr.  J ames  Stephens  in  the  lines  :  — 

"  And  day  by  day  they  told  that  one  was  dead, 
And  day  by  day  the  seasons  mourned  for  you 
Until  that  count  of  woe  was  finished, 
And  Spring  remembered  all  was  yet  to  do." 


206    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


the  result  of  trials  by  Court-martial  a  notice  in  the 
following  terms : — 

' '  In  view  of  the  gravity  of  the  Rebellion  and  its 
connection  with  German  intrigue  and  propaganda, 
and  in  view  of  the"  great  loss  of  life  and  property 
resulting  therefrom,  the  General  Officer  Command- 
ing-in-Chief  has  found  it  imperative  to  inflict  the 
most  severe  penalties  on  the  known  organisers  of 
this  detestable  rising  and  on  those  Commanders 
who  took  an  active  part  in  the  actual  fighting 
which  occurred.  It  is  hoped  that  these  examples 
will  be  sufficient  to  act  as  a  deterrent  to  intriguers, 
and  to  bring  home  to  them  that  the  murder  of  his 
Majesty's  liege  subjects,  or  other  acts  calculated 
to  imperil  the  safety  of  the  Realm,  will  not  be 
tolerated." 

There  followed  almost  immediately  the  an- 
nouncement of  the  two  final  executions,  those  of 
James  Connolly,  whose  execution  had  been  de- 
layed by  his  wound,  and  MacDermot. 

Among  other  leaders  dealt  with  by  secret  Court- 
martial  sentences  amounting  in  the  aggregate  to 
several  hundred  years  of  imprisonment  were 
passed.  The  rank  and  file  taken  in  the  fighting 
were  lodged  temporarily  in  Dublin  barracks. 

Meanwhile  the  process  of  arresting  "  suspects  " 
was  in  active  operation  everywhere  through- 
out the  country.  Some  three  thousand  persons, 
apart  from  those  who  were  being  dealt  with  by 
Court-martial,  were  finally  deported  to  Eng- 
land. In  the  course  of  this  process  a  not  in- 
considerable number  of  men  perfectly  innocent 
of  any  connection  with  the  rising,  including  even 
a  couple  of  Orangemen,  were  arrested.  In  the 
haste  and  confusion  of  the  moment  mistakes  of 
this  kind  could  scarcely  be  avoidable;  but  they 


AFTERMATH  OF  REBELLION  207 


served  to  add  fuel  to  the  fire  of  resentment  against 
the  regime  of  martial  law.  Perhaps  the  most 
potent  cause  of  unrest,  however,  were  the  reports 
which  simultaneously  began  to  circulate  that 
during  the  military  operations  in  Dublin  a  number 
of  peaceful  citizens  had  been  deliberately  shot 
without  cause  by  the  troops.  There  was,  unhap- 
pily, a  certain  measure  of  solid  and  incontro- 
vertible foundation  for  these  reports.  During  the 
Rebellion,  three  men,  Francis  Sheehy-Skeffington, 
an  ardent  pacificist,  who  was  actually  on  his  way 
to  use  his  influence  to  put  a  stop  to  looting; 
Mclntyre,  the  editor  of  an  anti-Larkinite  paper  ; 
and  Dixon,  the  editor  of  a  weekly  publication 
called  the  Eye-Opener,  were  arrested  and  taken 
to  Portobello  Barracks.  None  of  them  had  the 
smallest  sympathy  or  connection  with  the  Rebel- 
lion; but  all  of  them,  without  any  form  of  trial 
whatever,  were  shot  at  the  Barracks  by  order  of 
Captain  J.  C.  Bowen-Colthurst,  an  officer  who 
was  subsequently  tried  by  Court-martial,  and 
found  to  be  of  unsound  mind.  Other  cases  of  the 
shooting  of  innocent  persons  did  undoubtedly 
occur  ;  but  they  were  explained,  if  not  excused,  by 
the  nature  of  the  fighting.  On  the  establishment 
of  the  cordons  some  streets  were  found  to  be 
strongly  held  by  rebels  occupying  the  roofs  of 
houses,  upper  windows,  and  strongly  constructed 
barricades,  from  which  they  inflicted  severe  loss 
on  the  troops,  and,  once  the  cordon  was  estab- 
lished, the  troops  were  subjected  to  a  continuous 
fire  by  night  from  rebels  concealed  in  houses.  One 
such  street  was  North  King  Street,  where,  after 
the  Rebellion,  several  persons  whom  there  was  no 
reason  to  suspect  of  complicity  in  the  rising  were 
found  dead  of  bullet  wounds  in  circumstances 
which  suggested  a  desire  to  conceal  their  bodies. 
In  confused  and  desperate  fighting  of  this  char- 


208   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


acter  some  innocent  persons  were  shot  in  error; 
there  may  have  occurred  cases  where  individual 
soldiers,  harassed  and  short  of  rest  and  food, 
"  saw  red."  Not  only  innocent  citizens  suffered, 
however ;  that  the  conditions  of  fighting  were  not 
calculated  to  induce  the  nicest  discrimination  is 
sufficiently  proved  by  the  fact  that  in  Guinness's 
Brewery,  when  a  night  attack  by  rebels  was  ex- 
pected, two  officers  were  shot  dead  by  their  own 
men.  Cases  of  wrongful  as  distinct  from  acci- 
dental shooting  of  citizens,  when  the  circumstances 
were  taken  into  account,  were  surprisingly  few. 
Sir  John  Maxwell  claimed  in  his  despatch  re- 
specting the  operations  that  "  the  troops  as  a 
whole  behaved  with  the  greatest  restraint,  and 
carried  out  their  disagreeable  and  distasteful 
duties  in  a  manner  which  reflected  the  greatest 
credit  on  their  discipline."  Nevertheless  the 
belief  that  the  troops  had  perpetrated  "atrocities" 
in  Dublin  gained  the  widest  currency. 

From  all  these  causes  Sir  John  Maxwell's 
administration  of  Ireland  under  Martial  Law 
became  in  the  eyes  of  a  great  mass  of  Nationalists 
utterly  detestable.  That  old  suspicion  and  dis- 
like of  the  British  Army  which  the  war  seemed 
to  have  destroyed  gained  a  new  lease  of  bitter  life. 
There  occurred  a  profound  reaction  of  National 
sentiment.  The  rebel  leaders,  without  any  wide 
public  influence  in  their  lives,  became  in  their  death 
popular  heroes  and  martyrs.  Martial  Law, 
widely  welcomed  at  the  outset  as  a  guarantee  of 
public  security,  became  identified  with  odious 
memories  of  regimes  of  "  Coercion  "  which  had 
been  fading  into  the  forgotten  backgrounds  of 
Irish  history.  Badges  of  the  Republican  colours 
were  everywhere  openly  worn  about  the  streets  of 
Dublin.  Throughout  the  country  a  wave  of  emotion 
swept  great  numbers  of  Nationalists  into  the 
Republican  camp.    The  whole  basis  of  the  con- 


AFTERMATH  OF  REBELLION  209 


stitutional  Home  Rule  movement  seemed  in 
imminent  danger  of  being  undermined.  The 
origins  of  the  most  formidable  physical  force 
movement  in  Irish  history  seemed  to  be  in  process 
of  being  laid  in  the  ruins  of  the  Rebellion. 

This  revulsion  of  popular  feeling  in  Ireland  was 
accompanied  by  a  similar  revulsion  of  feeling 
among  the  Irish  of  the  United  States.  Here, 
again,  though  American  journalists  flocked  to 
Ireland  on  the  suppression  of  the  Rebellion,  the 
British  Government  made  no  effort  to  explain  the 
gravity  of  the  Rebellion  to  the  American  public. 
Even  the  best  informed  of  the  great  pro-Ally 
American  newspapers,  while  admitting  that  they 
were  imperfectly  informed,  declared  that  in  any 
circumstances  the  execution  of  the  rebel  leaders 
was  a  capital  political  blunder.    The  severity  of 
Martial  Law  was  undoubtedly  exaggerated  in  the 
United  States.     There  was  an  appeal  issued 
by   the   Roman   Catholic   Archbishop   of  San 
Francisco,  which  drew  a  pathetic  picture  of  the 
hunger  and  distress  alleged  to  have  arisen  out  of 
the  Rebellion.    It  stated  that,  under  the  presi- 
dency of  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Farley  and  O'Connell, 
'l  a  nation-wide  movement  has  been  inaugurated 
to  relieve  the  appalling  misery  and  destitution 
that  exist  to-day  in  Ireland,"   and  that  an 
American  Relief  Committee  would  proceed  to 
Ireland  and  administer  the  funds  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Roman  Catholic  Archbishop  of  Dublin. 

It  is  probable  that  the  sum  total  of  distress 
among  the  families  of  rebels  was  less  than  that 
among  the  families  which  the  Rebellion  had 
thrown  out  of  employment.  A  few  of  the  persons  ar- 
rested were  almost  at  once  released,  being  obviously 
innocent.  The  aggregate  of  persons  deported  was, 
as  has  been  stated,  about  three  thousand.  Some  of 
the  cases  were  quickly  dealt  with,  and  the  men 
released  after  a  short  detention.    Finally  about 

o 


210   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


2,000  prisoners  reached  the  Frongoch  internment 
camp  in  North  Wales.  Of  these  about  seventy  per 
cent,  were  set  free  three  months  later  on  the  re- 
commendation of  an  advisory  committee.  Mean- 
while the  public  had  taken  good  care  of  the 
families  of  the  rebels ;  two  separate  funds  started 
for  this  purpose  collected  within  two  months  a 
sum  of  eleven  thousand  pounds.  The  appeal  to 
America  was  also  very  successful.  It  was  read  at 
mass  meetings  in  New  York  and  other  American 
cities.  At  one  of  these  meetings  considerable 
capital  was  made  of  the  presence  of  Miss 
Monteith,  a  relative  of  the  Robert  Monteith  who 
landed  in  Ireland  from  the  German  submarine 
with  Casement  and  Bailey. 

The  temper  of  a  great  mass  of  Irish  and  Irish- 
American  opinion  was  in  an  excited  state  when 
on  May  12th,  having  announced  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  previous  day  that  the  Government 
regarded  the  situation  as  unsatisfactory,  and  that 
he  considered  it  to  be  his  duty  to  proceed  to  Ire- 
land and  to  consult  the  authorities,  Mr.  Asquith 
landed  in  Ireland.  He  remained  in  Ireland  about 
a  week,  during  which  he  visited  Belfast  and  Cork, 
and  conferred  with  representatives  of  various 
parties,  not  excluding  the  rebel  prisoners  in 
Dublin.  On  May  24th  he  reported  the  result  of 
his  mission  to  the  House  of  Commons.  It  had  left, 
he  said,  '  two  main  dominant  impressions  '  on  his 
mind.  "  The  first  was  the  break-down  of  the  ex- 
isting machinery  of  the  Irish  Government,  and  the 
next  was  the  strength  and  depth,  and  I  might 
almost  say,  without  exaggeration,  the  universality 
of  the  feeling  in  Ireland  that  we  have  now  a 
unique  opportunity  for  a  new  departure  for  a 
settlement  of  outstanding  problems,  and  for  a 
general  and  combined  effort  to  obtain  agree- 


AFTERMATH  OF  REBELLION  211 


ment  as  to  the  way  in  which  the  government  of 
Ireland  should  in  future  be  carried  on/' 

Evidence  of  the  breakdown  of  the  existing 
machinery  of  Irish  government  was  visible  in  the 
heart  of  Dublin,  which  wore  the  appearance  of  a 
war-swept  town  in  Flanders.  Nor  was  the 
strength  and  depth  of  the  desire  of  all  parties  in 
Ireland  for  a  settlement  open  to  question.  There 
hung  on  the  walls  of  Dublin  and  other  Irish  towns 
a  recruiting  poster,  the  first  lines  of  which  dis- 
played in  bold  type  these  words  : — "  The  Curse 
of  War — What  it  means — Keep  it  from  Ireland's 
Fields  and  Towns."  Some  of  these  posters  in 
Dublin  now  hung  in  mockery  scored  with  bullet 
holes.  The  curse  of  war  had  come  upon  Ireland, 
and  the  citizens  of  Dublin,  at  least,  know  only  too 
well  what  war  meant.  They  had  heard  in  their 
streets  the  rattle  of  musketry,  the  vicious  knock- 
ing of  machine  guns,  the  boom  of  artillery,  the 
screech  and  deafening  explosion  of  shells.  They 
had  seen  their  dead  lying  in  streets  lit  up  by  the 
glare  of  infernal  conflagrations.  They  had  seen 
a  wide  area  of  the  city  lying  in  impressive  ruin. 
They  had  experienced  that  complete  stoppage  of 
all  the  amenities  of  life,  and  much  of  that  suspen- 
sion of  the  bare  necessaries  of  existence,  which  war 
brings  in  its  train.  They  realised,  as  in  a  flash, 
the  real  significance  of  that  "  Civil  War  "  of  which 
there  had  been  such  almost  light-hearted  talk 
before  the  war ;  and  all  Ireland  recoiled  from  the 
contemplation  of  the  mere  possibility  that  after 
the  war  in  which  Irishmen  of  all  creeds  and 
classes,  north,  south,  east  and  west,  had  fought 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  there  could  be  any  return  fco 
the  old  bitterness  and  violence  of  domestic  strife 
in  Ireland. 

The  moment,  as  Mr.  Asquith  claimed,  was  pro- 
pitious for  settlement.   But  both  the  Minister  de- 


212   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


puted  to  negotiate  the  settlement  and  the  scheme  of 
settlement  proposed  were  alike  unfortunate.  The 
negotiation  was  entrusted  to  Mr.  Lloyd  George, 
who  was  not  liked  by  either  party  in  Ireland,  and 
that  Minister  committed  what  was  afterwards  re- 
cognised to  be  the  capital  blunder  of  attempting 
the  task  of  settlement  without  even  paying  a  visit 
to  Ireland.  Moreover,  the  Government  did  not 
make,  as  Mr.  Asquith  had  said,  "a  new  depar- 
ture" for  the  settlement;  instead  it  took  up  the 
negotiations  at  the  point  where  they  had  broken 
down  in  the  Buckingham  Palace  Conference  on  the 
eve  of  the  war  two  years  before.  The  basis  on 
which  Mr.  Lloyd  George  was  commissioned  by  the 
Cabinet  to  attempt  to  negotiate  a  settlement  was 
that  the  Home  Rule  Act  should  be  brought  into 
immediate  operation,  but  that  the  six  Ulster 
Counties  of  Down,  Antrim,  Londonderry,  Ar- 
magh, Monaghan  and  Tyrone  should  be  excluded 
from  its  scope.  This  arrangement  was  to  con- 
tinue for  the  period  of  the  war  and  a  year  after- 
wards, by  which  time,  it  was  given  to  be  under- 
stood, an  Imperial  Conference  would  bring  the 
question  of  Irish  government  under  review  in 
relation  with  the  general  problem  of  Imperial 
reconstruction.  Whether  the  excluded  Ulster 
counties  were  to  be  bound  by  the  decisions  of  such 
a  Conference,  or  were  to  preserve  complete  free- 
dom of  action — whether,  in  other  words,  exclusion 
was  to  be  "temporary"  or  "permanent" — was  a 
question  which,  probably  not  without  intention, 
was  left  vague  and  uncertain  in  the  earlier  steps 
of  the  negotiations. 

The  first  body  in  Ireland  to  deliberate  upon  the 
proposed  settlement  was  the  Ulster  Unionist 
Council,  which  met  under  the  presidency  of  Sir 
Edward  Carson  on  Monday,  June  12th.  Many 
Irishmen  at  least  were  astonished  when  the  Council 


AFTERMATH  OF  REBELLION  213 


proceeded  to  tear  up  the  Solemn  Covenant,  and 
agreed  to  the  terms  proposed  on  the  strict  under- 
standing that  the  exclusion  of  the  six  Counties  was 
to  be  "definite."  Its  assent  was  secured  largely  by 
the  aid  of  a  mysterious  plea  of  "  Imperial  neces- 
sity "  which  Mr.  Lloyd  George  invoked;  this  was 
understood  to  concern  the  state  of  Irish- American 
opinion,  and  the  safe  output  and  transit  of 
American  munitions  of  war,  but  it  was  after- 
wards denied  that  the  latter  consideration  carried 
any  weight  with  the  Government.  The  decision  of 
the  Ulster  Unionists  was  followed  by  a  Convention 
of  the  Nationalists  of  Ulster,  which  also — after  a 
stern  contest  with  the  Ulster  Roman  Catholic 
Hierarchy,  which  strongly  opposed  the  settlement 
— agreed  to  the  terms  proposed,  but  in  this  case 
on  the  strict  understanding  that  the  exclusion  of 
the  six  Counties  was  to  be  "  provisional."  Vague 
hopes  were  also  held  out  of  a  general  amnesty  for 
the  prisoners  under  sentence  of  penal  servitude. 

From  this  fundamental  variation  in  the  terms 
accepted  by  the  two  contracting  parties ;  from  the 
fact  that  neither  their  leaders,  nor  Mr.  Lloyd 
George,  acting  on  behalf  of  the  Cabinet,  were 
plenipotentiaries ;  and  from  the  fact  that  a  scheme 
which  proposed  the  partition  of  Ireland  was  re- 
pugnant to  the  national  instinct  of  the  great 
majority  of  Irishmen  of  all  parties — from  all 
these  causes,  but  especially  from  the  last,  the 
"  settlement "  miscarried.  The  actual  occasion  of 
its  collapse-  was  the  insistence  of  Unionist 
Ministers  that  the  terms  of  the  Amending  Bill 
embodying  the  "settlement  "  should  make  it  clear 
that  the  excluded  Ulster  counties  could  not  be 
brought  into  the  Home  Rule  Scheme  against  their 
will,  and  that,  when  the  Home  Rule  Act  was 
brought  into  operation,  the  Irish  representation 
in  the  Imperial  Parliament  should  be  reduced. 


214   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


On  the  ground  that  these  provisions  departed 
from  the  proposals  submitted  to  him  by  Mr.  Lloyd 
George,  Mr.  Redmond,  on  behalf  of  the  Nation- 
alist Party,  repudiated  the  "  settlement/5  But 
there  is  little  doubt  that  he  was  not  altogether 
sorry  for  the  opportunity,  and  that  the  attitude  of 
the  Unionist  Ministers  was  merely  the  occasion, 
and  not  the  cause,  of  the  breakdown.  Its  causes 
lay  deeper.  Delays  in  the  Cabinet  in  giving 
effect  to  the  "settlement"  afforded  time  for  the 
Irish  people  to  disown  the  "settlement"  which 
their  political  leaders  had  accepted.  It  rapidly 
became  clear  that  these  leaders  on  both  sides  had 
ceased  to  be  representative.  Nationalist  public 
bodies  all  over  the  country  protested  against  the 
partition  of  Ireland,  permanent  or  temporary. 
Steps  were  taken  by  the  Nationalists  of  Ulster, 
with  the  approval  and  support  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Hierarchy,  to  organise  a  new  party  which 
should  maintain  the  traditional  Nationalist  policy 
of  a  United  Ireland.  Only  the  abandonment  of 
Mr.  Lloyd  George's  proposals  prevented  a  split  in 
the  Nationalist  ranks  as  serious  as  the  Parnellite 
split,  and  the  repudiation  of  Mr.  Redmond's 
leadership  by  a  large  body  of  his  nominal  fol- 
lowers. On  the  Unionist  side,  opposition  to  the 
"  settlement "  was  equally  formidable.  The 
Southern  Unionists,  who  had  hitherto  slavishly 
followed  the  lead  of  Ulster  in  all  things,  assumed 
an  attitude  of  independence  and  warmly  de- 
nounced the  action  of  the  Ulster  Unionist  Council 
in  deserting  them.  Even  the  Unionists  of  Ulster 
were  not  satisfied  with  the  situation.  They  had 
never  been  sincere  in  their  demand  for  exclusion; 
that  demand  was  at  the  outset  a  tactical 
manoeuvre  designed  to  defeat  the  whole  Home 
Rule  policy,  and  later  a  pis  alter  adopted  more  for 
the  sake  of  consistency  than  anything  else.  The 


AFTERMATH  OF  REBELLION  215 


policy  of  exclusion  had  never  yet  been  seriously 
considered  by  Ulster  Unionists  on  its  merits,  and 
it  became  apparent,  once  they  stood  committed  to 
it,  that  the  more  they  considered  it  the  less  they 
liked  it. 

The  delay  on  the  part  of  the  Government  in 
pressing  forward  the  "  settlement "  which  enabled 
popular  opposition  in  Ireland  to  repudiate  its 
acceptance  by  Sir  Edward  Carson  and  Mr.  Red- 
mond was  secured  chiefly  by  the  action  of  the 
Southern  Unionists.  These  represented  to  the 
Unionist  Ministers  in  the  Coalition  Government, 
in  a  memorandum  presented  on  June  26th  that  "  if 
these  proposals  are  carried  out,  the  members  of 
the  Sinn  Fein  movement  will  themselves  usurp  the 
power  of  Government  in  Ireland,''  and  that  "  if 
Ireland  remains  in  an  unsettled  and  dangerous 
condition,  as  we  believe  it  will  under  these  pro- 
posals, special  naval  and  military  arrangements 
will  have  to  be  made  to  meet  this  condition,  and 
this  would  be  manifestly  a  dangerous  interference 
with  the  best  use  of  both  services  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  war."  There  was  sufficient  substance 
in  this  argument  to  impress  the  Cabinet.  The 
Republican  party,  already  large  and  growing,  as 
we  have  seen,  accepted  the  fact  of  the  proposed 
"settlement"  as  a  reward  of  rebellion,  and  used 
the  form  of  "  settlement,"  which  was  repugnant 
to  the  national  instincts  of  the  vast  majority  of 
Irishmen,  to  recruit  its  strength  further.  The 
Ulster  Unionists  had  played  fast  and  loose  with 
their  Solemn  Covenant.  The  Irish  Party  had 
hauled  down  the  flag  of  an  "  United  Ireland."  The 
Republicans  seemed  to  be  the  only  party  left  which 
still  had  convictions  and  the  courage  of  them,  and 
thus  attracted  the  support  of  political  elements 
which  turned  to  any  quarter  where  they  could  find 
consistency  and  sincerity.   In  any  case,  the  argu- 


216   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


ment  of  the  Southern  Unionists  made  the  Unionist 
Ministers  so  doubtful  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
'  'settlement' '  that  they  delayed  in  giving  effect  to  it 
long  enough  for  Irish  public  opinion  to  make  itself 
articulate  in  determined  opposition  to  it.  There 
was  to  those  who  preferred  constitutional  to  vio- 
lent methods  in  politics,  and  moral  suasion  to 
physical  force,  a  consoling  reflection  in  the  fact 
that  the  failure  of  the  partition  proposals  was 
secured,  in  the  last  analysis,  by  the  action  of 
Southern  Unionists ;  for  that  party  made  its  voice 
effective  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  was  the  only 
party  in  Ireland  which  preserved  a  strict  right  to 
be  called  constitutional,  the  only  party  which  had 
not  participated  in  the  Volunteer  movement,  the 
only  party  which  was  not  in  a  position  to  support 
its  arguments  with  rifles. 

On  July  24th,  1916,  two  years  to  a  day  after  the 
breakdown  of  the  Buckingham  Palace  Conference, 
Mr.  Asquith  announced  in  the  House  of  Commons 
that,  in  default  of  any  prospect  of  securing  agree- 
ment, the  Government  did  not  intend  to  proceed 
with  the  "  settlement."  A  week  later  he  announced 
that  it  proposed  to  restore  the  machinery  of  Irish 
Government  which  not  three  months  before  he  had 
described  as  having  "  broken  down;"  a  new  Chief 
Secretary  was  appointed  in  the  person  of  Mr. 
Duke,  the  Unionist  member  for  Exeter;  Lord 
Wimborne  was  re-appointed  Lord  Lieutenant,  and 
the  discredited  administration  of  Dublin  Castle 
was  reconstituted.  At  this  point  the  history  of 
the  Irish  Rebellion  of  1916  may  conveniently  be 
brought  to  an  end ;  for  at  this  point  the  immediate 
train  of  events  which  it  set  in  motion  reached  its 
period.  The  ultimate  consequences  of  the  Re- 
bellion, however,  remained  to  be  revealed  :  there 
was  rarely  a  time  in  the  history  of  Ireland  when 
her  future  political  conditions  were  less  easily 


AFTERMATH  OF  REBELLION  217 

calculable.  We  must  end  this  book,  like  the 
sceptical  German  philosopher,  with  a  question 
mark.  Would  the  influence  of  the  Rebellion  pro- 
duce, in  spite  of  the  failure  of  the  first  impulse 
in  that  direction,  a  secure  and  lasting  Irish  settle- 
ment?    "Or  else  ?" 


APPENDICES 


APPENDIX  A 


REPORT  OF  THE  ROYAL  COMMISSION  ON  THE 
REBELLION  IN  IRELAND. 


[The  Royal  Commission  was  appointed  on  May  10th,  1916, 
and  consisted  of  Lord  Hardinge  of  Penshurst,  Sir  Montague 
Shearman,  and  Sir  Mackenzie  Chalmers.'] 


TO  THE  KING'S  MOST  EXCELLENT  MAJESTY. 

May  it  please  Your  Majesty — 

1.  We  the  undersigned  now  humbly  submit  to  Your  Majesty 
our  Report  on  the  matters  into  which  we  were  directed  to 
inquire. 

2.  The  terms  of  reference  to  us  were  "  to  inquire  into  the 
causes  of  the  recent  outbreak  of  rebellion  in  Ireland,  and 
into  the  conduct  and  degree  of  responsibility  of  the  civil  and 
military  executive  in  Ireland  in  connection  therewith. " 

3.  In  pursuance  of  these  instructions  we  have  held  nine 
meetings,  of  which  five  were  held  inLondon  and  four  in  Dublin. 
At  the  first  sitting  the  Commission  of  Your  Majesty  was  read. 

4.  We  have  examined  twenty -nine  witnesses.  They  were 
examined  in  public  except  in  so  far  as  their  evidence  dealt 
with  German  intrigues  or  police  information.  Four  other 
persons  submitted  to  us  signed  statements,  and  these  will  be 
found  in  the  Appendix  immediately  following  upon  the 
evidence  taken  in  public. 


220   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


5.  We  had  interviews  with  various  persons  who  kindly  dis- 
cussed with  us  the  subjects  into  which  we  had  to  inquire.  We 
also  received  statements  from  several  persons  who  offered  to 
give  evidence,  but,  having  regard  to  the  scope  of  our  inquiry, 
we  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  call  them  as  witnesses. 

6.  We  purpose  to  consider  the  matters  referred  to  in  the 
following  order — namely,  (a)  the  constitution  of  the  Irish 
Executive,  in  so  far  as  it  is  concerned  with  the  maintenance 
of  law  and  order  ;  (b)  the  legal  power  vested  in  that  Executive  ; 
and  (c)  the  history  of  events  leading  up  to  the  outbreak  of  the 
24th  April,  1916,  together  with  our  observations  and  con- 
clusions thereon. 

The  Irish  Government. 

The  executive  government  of  Ireland  is  entrusted  to  three 
officers,  namely,  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  the  Chief  Secretary  to 
the  Lord  Lieutenant,  and  the  Under-Secretary  ;  and  for  the 
purpose  of  maintaining  order  they  have  at  their  disposal  two 
police  forces,  namely,  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary  and  the 
Dublin  Metropolitan  Police  force.  "  Theoretically,"  says  Sir 
William  Anson,  "  the  executive  government  of  Ireland  is  con- 
ducted by  the  Lord  Lieutenant  in  Council,  subject  to  in- 
structions which  he  may  receive  from  the  Home  Office  of 
the  United  Kingdom.  Practically  it  is  conducted  for  all 
important  purposes  by  the  Chief  Secretary  to  the  Lord 
Lieutenant."  (Law  and  Customs  of  the  Constitution,  ed. 
1892,  p.  189.) 

The  Lord  Lieutenant  (who  is  also  Governor-General)  is 
resident  in  Ireland.  By  the  terms  of  his  patent  he  is  respon- 
sible for  the  civil  government  of  the  country,  and  the  naval 
and  military  forces  of  the  Crown  in  Ireland  are  under  his  orders. 
But,  when  the  Chief  Secretary  is  in  the  Cabinet  and  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  is  not,  all  powers  and  responsibility  are  in  practice 
vested  in  the  Chief  Secretary.  His  policy  is  the  policy  of  the 
British  Government  as  a  whole,  and  it  is  obviously  impossible 
that  there  should  be  any  other  independent  authority  or 
responsibility  in  Ireland.  For  many  years  past  the  office  of 
Lord  Lieutenant  has  been  a  ceremonial  office  ;  apart  from  the 
exercise  of  the  prerogative  of  mercy  he  has  no  executive 
functions.     Proclamations,  appointments  and  other  State 


APPENDIX  A 


221 


documents  are  issued  in  his  name,  but  they  are  put  before  him 
for  signature,  without  previous  consultation.  He  is  only- 
furnished  with  information  as  to  the  state  of  the  country  which 
he  nominally  governs,  when  he  asks  for  it,  and  then  as  a 
matter  of  courtesy.  The  military  and  naval  forces  in  Ireland 
take  their  orders  from  the  War  Office  and  Admiralty  respec- 
tively. 

The  office  of  Chief  Secretary  is  a  political  office,  changing 
with  the  Government.  The  Executive  Government  of 
Ireland  is  entirely  in  his  hands  subject  to  the  control  of  the 
Cabinet.  When  the  Chief  Secretary  is  a  member  of  the  Cabinet, 
as  has  been  the  case  in  recent  years,  he  is,  of  necessity,  to  a 
great  extent  an  absentee  from  Ireland.  He  has  to  attend 
Cabinet  Meetings,  and  he  is  the  only  person  who  can,  with 
authority,  answer  questions  and  defend  the  Government  policy 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  Although  the  Chief  Secretary  is 
in  the  position  of  a  Secretary  of  State,  he  has  no  Parliamentary 
Under-Secretary,  and  the  Irish  law  officers  are  frequently  not 
members  of  the  House  of  Commons.  During  the  last  two 
and  a  half  years  of  Mr,  Birrell's  nine  years'  tenure  of  office 
Parliament  has  been  in  almost  continuous  session.  He  had, 
therefore,  during  this  critical  period  but  little  opportunity  of 
making  himself  personally  acquainted  with  the  state  of  affairs 
in  Ireland.  He  was  dependent  for  information  on  the  reports 
of  his  Under-Secretary  and  the  advice  given  by  those  Irish 
members  of  Parliament  whom  he  chose  to  consult. 

The  Under-Secretary  is  a  civil  servant,  residing  in  Ireland. 
For  practical  purposes  he  can  only  take  action  under  authority 
delegated  to  him  by  the  Chief  Secretary.  His  duty  is  to  report 
fully  and  fairly  to  his  Chief  all  information  that  he  can  obtain, 
to  give  his  advice  freely  as  to  what  should  be  done,  and  then 
loyally  to  carry  out  the  instructions  of  his  Chief  without  regard 
to  any  personal  opinion  of  his  own. 

For  the  ordinary  maintenance  of  law  and  order  the  Irish 
Government  have  two  police  forces,  viz.,  the  Royal  Irish 
Constabulary  and  the  Dublin  Metropolitan  Police  Force. 
Both  forces  are  under  the  direct  control  of  the  Irish  Govern- 
ment, though  a  rate  is  levied  in  Dublin  as  a  contribution  to 
the  expenses  of  the  Dublin  force  (see  12  &  13  Vict.  c.  91, 


222   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


ss.  29,  30).  It  appears  that  since  1905  the  Dublin  Corporation 
have  refused  to  pay  the  proceeds  of  this  rate  into*  the  police 
fund,  and  that  the  matter  has  been  adjusted  by  deducting  the 
amount  from  the  Local  Taxation  account.  The  Royal  Irish 
Constabulary  is  a  quasi-military  force.  Its  members  are 
armed  with  carbines  and  taught  to  shoot.  They  police  the 
whole  of  Ireland,  except  the  Dublin  police  district.  When 
the  rebellion  broke  out  the  Constabulary  was  somewhat  under 
strength,  as  it  had  furnished  a  good  many  recruits  to  the 
Army.  The  military  authorities  were  naturally  anxious  to 
get  recruits  from  a  body  of  men  with  splendid  physique  and 
a  fine  record  of  honourable  service.  The  Dublin  police  is  also 
a  fine  body  of  men,  and  its  numbers  were  also  slightly  dimin- 
ished by  reason  of  enlistments.  The  force  is  unarmed,  con- 
sequently when  an  armed  rebellion  broke  out  in  Dublin  the 
police  had  to  be  withdrawn  from  duty.  If  Dublin,  like  Cork 
and  Belfast,  had  been  policed  Jby  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary, 
a  thousand  armed  and  disciplined  policemen,  knowing  every 
nook  and  cranny  of  the  city,  would  have  been  a  formidable 
addition  to  the  thousand  soldiers  who  were  available  when 
the  rebellion  first  broke  out,  and  the  rebels  might  have  hesitated 
to  face  them.  As  Sir  Matthew  Nathan  expressed  it  in  his 
letter  of  the  18th  December,  1915,  to  Mr.  Birrell,  in  the  event 
of  an  outbreak,  "  Each  policeman  would  be  worth  three 
soldiers."  It  is  clear  from  the  evidence  that  the  two  police 
forces  work  cordially  together,  but  it  is  obvious  that  two 
separate  forces,  under  separate  commands,  cannot  be  in  a  time 
of  emergency  as  efficient  a3  a  single  force  under  one  command. 
Each  of  the  forces  has  a  small  special  Crimes  branch,  drawn 
from  uniformed  men.  For  ordinary  police  purposes  this 
branch  does  its  work  well,  but  it  is  not  specially  qualified  to 
deal  with  political  crime,  which  takes  no  notice  of  the  boun- 
daries of  police  districts,  and  which  in  the  case  of  Ireland 
assumes  an  international  complexion. 

If  the  Irish  system  of  government  be  regarded  as  a  whole 
it  is  anomalous  in  quiet  times,  and  almost  unworkable  in  times 
of  crisis. 


APPENDIX  A 


223 


Legal  Powers  of  the  Irish  Executive. 

The  legal  powers  vested  in  the  Irish  Government  for  the 
maintenance  of  law  and  order  and  the  suppression  of  sedition 
must  now  be  considered. 

From  1881  to  1906  the  Peace  Preservation  (Ireland)  Act 
(44  &  45  Vict.,  c.  5)*  was  in  force  in  that  country.  Under  that 
enactment  the  Govenment  had  complete  control  over  the 
importation  and  sale  of  arms  and  ammunition,  and  over  the 
carrying  of  arms  or  the  possession  of  ammunition.  The  Act 
was  a  temporary  one  continued  from  year  to  year  by  the 
Expiring  Laws  Continuance  Act.  In  1906  the  Act  was  allowed 
to  lapse  by  Sir  Henry  Campbell  Bannerman's  Government. 
But  the  Irish  Government  had  other,  though  less  efficient  j 
powers  for  dealing  with  unauthorised  bodies  who  sought  to 
arm  themselves.  If  the  ordinary  excise  duty  on  carrying  a 
gun  had  been  enforced  a  complete  register  of  firearms  would 
have  been  obtained,  and  the  poorer  members  of  the  community 
might  have  found  difficulty  in  paying  the  license  duty  (see  the 
Gun  License  Act,  1870  (33  &  34  Vict.  c.  57)).  It  seems  that 
no  attempt  was  made  to  enforce  this  law,  the  only  reason 
alleged  being  that  the  people  concerned  would  have  refused 
to  take  out  the  license  and  pay  the  duty. 

The  Explosive  Substances  Act,  1883  (46  &  47  Vict.  c.  83), 
which  applies  to  the  whole  of  the  United  Kingdom,  gives 
drastic  powers  for  dealing  with  explosives,  and  it  may  be 
assumed  that  the  term  "  explosive  "  would  include  stores  of 
ammunition  as  well  as  high  explosives.  Under  that  Act  if 
any  person  has  in  h  s  possession  any  explosive  substance  he 
is  guilty  of  felony  and  liable  on  conviction  to  14  years'  penal 
servitude,  unless  he  can  show  that  he  was  in  possession  thereof 
for  a  lawful  object  (sect.  4).  Accessories  are  liable  to  a  like 
punishment.  For  the  purpose  of  discovering  stores  of  ex- 
plosives, the  Attorney-General,  if  he  has  reasonable  ground 
for  believing  that  the  Act  has  been  disobeyed,  may  order  an 
inquiry  at  which  witnesses  may  be  examined  on  oath,  although 
no  person  is  charged  with  any  crime  under  the  Act. 

The  Unlawful  Drilling  Act,  1819  (60  Geo.  3.  c.  1),  is  an  Act 

*  Commonly  known  as  the  Arms  Act. 


224    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


"  to  prevent  the  training  of  persons  to  the  use  of  Arms  and  to 
the  practice  of  Military  Evolutions  and  Exercise."  It  pro- 
hibits drilling  and  military  exercises  unless  authorised  by  the 
Crown,  the  lieutenant,  or  two  county  justices,  and  authorises 
any  justice  or  peace  officer  to  disperse  any  meeting  unauthor- 
ised for  drilling,  and  -to  arrest  the  persons  attending  it.  As 
regards  procedure,  the  Criminal  Law  and  Procedure  (Ireland) 
Act,  1887  (50  &  51  Vict.  c.  20),  besides  providing  for  special 
jury  trials  in  proclaimed  districts,  empowers  the  Lord  Lieu- 
tenant by  proclamation  to  prohibit  or  suppress  "  dangerous 
associations,"  and  defines  as  dangerous  any  association  which 
(inter  alia)  interferes  with  the  administration  of  the  law  or 
disturbs  the  maintenance  of  law  and  order. 

It  may  be  noted  too  that  the  old  Acts,  known  as  the 
Whiteboy  Acts,  some  of  which  were  passed  by  the  Irish 
Parliament,  appear  to  be  still  in  force.  These  Acts  give  the 
Government  extensive  powers  for  dealing  with  riotous  or 
unlawful  assemblies. 

The  Irish  Government  have  also  the  ordinary  common  law 
powers  for  proceeding  against  persons  who  publish  seditions 
libels  or  engage  in  seditious  conspiracies.  But  legal  powers 
are  of  no  avail  unless  the  Government  make  up  their  minds 
to  put  them  into  execution,  and  can  rely  on  juries  and 
magistrates  to  do  their  duty  when  prosecutions  are  supported 
by  adequate  evidence. 

War  broke  out  on  the  4th  August,  1914,  and  on  the 
8th  August  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act,  1914  (4  &  5  Geo.  5, 
c.  29),  was  passed.  This  Act  authorised  His  Majesty  in 
Council  to  issue  Regulations,  during  the  continnance  of  the 
war,  "  for  securing  the  public  safety  and  the  defence  of  the 
realm,"  and  instituted  trial  by  Court  Martial  for  serious 
offences  against  the  Regulations.  Under  these  provisions 
there  appeared  to  be  ample  powers  for  dealing  with  any 
manifestations  of  sedition  or  rebellion.  But  as  regards 
Ireland,  the  teeth  of  this  enactment  were  drawn  by  the  Defence 
of  the  Realm  Amendment  Act,  1915  (5  Geo.  5,  c.  34),  which 
was  passed  on  the  18th  March,  1915.  That  Act  provided  that 
any  British  subject  (not  being  a  person  subject  to  military 
law)  charged  with  an  offence  under  the  Defence  of  the  Realm 


APPENDIX  A 


225 


Acts  might  claim  to  be  tried  by  a  jury  in  a  civil  court,  instead 
of  by  court  martial.  Power  was  given  to  His  Majesty  to 
suspend  the  operation  of  this  provision  "  in  the  event  of 
invasion  or  other  special  military  emergency."  But  it 
certainly  would  have  been  difficult  to  have  justified  the 
exercise  of  this  suspensory  power  in  Ireland  before  any  actual 
outbreak  in  arms  had  occurred.  It  was  impossible,  as  stated  by 
Mr.  Birrell  and  other  witnesses,  to  get  a  conviction,  in  any  case 
tried  by  a  jury,  for  an  offence  against  law  and  order  however 
strong  the  evidence  for  the  Crown  might  be.  The  power  of 
internment  conferred  by  the  regulations  applied  primarily  to 
foreigners,  and  only  extended  to  British  subjects  when  "  hostile 
association  "  could  be  established.  Therefore,  however  serious 
an  offence  might  be,  the  only  remedy  was  a  prosecution  before 
a  court  of  summary  jurisdiction,  where  six  months'  imprison- 
ment was  the  maximum  punishment  that  could  be  imposed, 
and  when  a  case  was  tried  before  justices  there  was  no  certainty 
that  the  decision  would  be  in  accordance  with  the  evidence. 

Causes  of  the  Outbreak. 

In  dealing  with  the  series  of  events  which  led  up  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  24th  April,  1916,  and  in  endeavouring  to  eluci- 
date the  causes  of  the  rebellion  in  Ireland,  the  fact  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  there  is  always  a  section  of  opinion  in  that 
country  bitterly  opposed  to  the  British  connection,  and  that 
in  times  of  excitement  this  section  can  impose  its  sentiments 
on  largely  increased  numbers  of  the  people.  As  Mr.  Birrell 
described  it :  "  The  spirit  of  what  to-day  is  called  Sinn 
Feinism  is  mainly  composed  of  the  old  hatred  and  distrust  of 
the  British  connection,  always  noticeable  in  all  classes,  and  in 
all  places,  varying  in  degree,  and  finding  different  ways  of 
expression,  but  always  there  as  the  background  of  Irish  politics 
and  character." 

The  incidents  which  preceded  the  rising  in  April  1916  are 
fully  detailed  in  the  evidence  of  the  witnesses,  but  may  be 
summarised  as  follows  : — In  the  winter  of  1913,  while  industrial 
strikes  were  in  progress  in  Dublin,  an  armed  force  of  working 
men,  officially  called  the  Citizen  Army,  was  first  created.  As 
this  force  was  partly  armed,  and  the  Dublin  Metropolitan 

p 


226   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Police  are  an  unarmed  force,  the  employers  were  in  some  cases 
compelled  to  arm  their  carters  to  resist  intimidation  by  the 
strikers.  This  lawless  display  of  force  should  have  been  a 
warning  against  the  recent  policy  of  permitting  the  indis- 
criminate arming  of  civilians  in  Ireland  in  times  of  turbulence 
and  faction.  In  periods  of  peace  it  may  be  desirable  in  an 
orderly  community  to  disregard  some  seditious  utterances 
as  mere  vapouring,  but  when  a  country  is  engaged  in  a  serious 
struggle  sedition  alters  its  aspect  and  becomes  treason, 
dangerous  to  the  community,  and  should  promptly  be  sup- 
pressed. As  stated  by  Sir  David  Harrel  in  his  evidence,  the 
Irish  people  "  are  easily  led,  and  it  is  therefore  the  more 
incumbent  on  Government  to  nip  lawlessness  and  disorder  in 
the  bud.  Neglect  in  this  respect  has  invariably  led  to  things 
getting  out  of  hand,  with  the  result  that  strong  repressive 
measures  become  necessary,  and  much  hardship  is  imposed 
upon  misled,  but  perhaps  comparatively  inoffensive  people." 

On  the  13th  December,  1913,  in  view  of  information  that 
arms  were  entering  the  province  of  Ulster  from  foreign 
countries,  including  Germany,  a  Proclamation  was  issued  under 
the  Customs  Consolidation  Act,  1876,  prohibiting  the  importa- 
tion of  arms  into  Ireland  In  defiance  of  this,  large  quantities 
of  arms  were  surreptitiously  imported  by  night  at  Larne  and 
other  places,  in  April,  1914.  Before  this  date  other  similar 
consignments  had  been  seized  and  confiscated.  It  has  been 
stated  that  as  a  matter  of  policy  it  was  decided  by  the  Govern- 
ment not  to  take  proceedings  against  those  responsible  for 
this  breach  of  the  law.  The  validity  of  the  Proclamation  was 
afterwards  questioned  in  an  action  brought  by  a  gunsmith 
of  Ulster  against  the  Customs  authorities,  but  on  the  15th  June, 
1914,  a  majority  of  an  Irish  court  upheld  its  validity.  Not- 
withstanding this  decision  the  Irish  Government  decided  to 
withdraw  the  Proclamation,  and  the  withdrawal,  though 
decided  on  before  the  outbreak  of  the  War,  was  publicly 
notified  on  the  5th  August,  1914,  the  day  after  War  broke  out. 

On  Sunday,  the  26th  July,  1914,  a  large  consignment  of 
arms  and  ammunition  from  abroad  was  landed  at  Howth,  near 
Dublin,  for  the  use  of  the  Irish  National  Volunteers  who  will 
be  hereafter  described.  Members  of  that  force  overpowered 
the  Customs  Officers  and  landed  and  distributed  the  arms. 


APPENDIX  A 


227 


An  attempt  was  made  by  the  Dublin  Metropolitan  Police 
acting  under  orders  of  Mr.  W.  V.  Harrel,  the  Assistant  Com- 
missioner, to  enforce  the  Proclamation  by  seizure.  After 
trying  fruitlessly  to  obtain  the  co-operation  of  a  detachment 
of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary  he  called  in  a  military  force 
to  assist  him,  and  a  few  arms  were  taken,  but  most  of  the 
Volunteers  retired  with  the  weapons  before  the  arrival  of  the 
military.  Whilst  the  troops  were  returning  to  barracks  they 
were  attacked  by  a  mob  and  an  unfortunate  incident  occurred 
by  which  some  members  of  the  public  lost  their  lives  through 
shots  from  the  soldiers  in  Bachelor's  Walk.  Mr.  Harrel 
was  immediately  suspended  by  the  Chief  Secretary  pending 
further  investigation.  A  Royal  Commission  was  appointed 
to  enquire  into  this  matter,  and  sat  from  the  6th  to  the 
11th  August,  1914.  In  their  report  which  was  submitted  to 
Your  Majesty,  Mr.  Harrel  was  censured  by  the  Commission 
for  his  conduct  in  invoking  the  assistance  of  the  troops,  and  he 
resigned  his  position.  The  Chief  Commissioner — Sir  John 
Ross,  of  Bladensburg — had  previously  resigned  his  position 
after  the  order  of  temporary  suspension  had  been  issued  against 
Mr.  Harrel.  The  resignation  of  Mr.  Harrel  was  looked  upon 
by  the  public  in  Dublin  as  tantamount  to  dismissal,  and  while 
it  appears  that  it  had  no  effect  on  the  loyalty  of  the  Dublin 
Metropolitan  Police,  it  tended  to  discourage  the  officers  of 
that  body  from  initiative  in  enforcing  the  law.  Further,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  his  dismissal  tended  to  weaken  the 
authority  of  the  police,  as  it  gave  rise  to  the  opinion  amongst 
the  more  ignorant  classes  that  in  any  case  of  disorder  the 
Government  might  not  support  their  action. 

In  spite  of  the  breach  of  the  Proclamation  of  December, 
1913,  in  the  landing  of  arms  at  Howth,  the  Irish  Government 
decided  (as  in  the  case  of  the  arms  imported  at  Larne)  to  take 
no  action  and  to  institute  no  prosecution,  and  on  the 
5th  August,  as  has  been  above  stated,  the  restriction  upon  the 
importation  of  arms  into  Ireland  was  removed. 

From  the  evidence  given  before  the  Royal  Commission  it  is 
clear  that  the  insurrection  was  caused  by  two  bodies  of  men 
allied  together  for  this  purpose  and  known  as  the  Irish 
Volunteers  and  the  Citizen  Army.  It  is  now  a  matter  of 
common  notoriety  that  the  Irish  Volunteers  have  been  hi 


228    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


communication  with  the  authorities  in  Germany  and  were  for 
a  long  time  known  to  be  supplied  with  money  through  Irish 
American  societies.  This  was  so  stated  in  public  by  Mr.  John 
McNeill  on  the  8th  November,  1914.  It  was  suspected  long 
before  the  outbreak  that  some  of  the  money  came  from 
German  sources. 

The  following  facts  show  what  was  known  of  the  origin  and 
development  of  these  two  bodies  and  the  action  taken  by 
the  Irish  Government  in  dealing  with  their  activities  : — 

The  Irish  National  Volunteers  owed  their  origin  to  a  meeting 
at  Dublin  in  November,  1913,  of  twelve  men  who  came  together 
to  discuss  the  formation  of  an  Irish  Volunteer  Army.  The 
founders  of  the  force  included  John  McNeill,  Bulmer  Hobson, 
P.  H.  Pearse  and  The  O'Rahilly.  After  the  decision  to  enrol 
Volunteers  had  been  taken,  a  meeting  attended  by  some 
thousands  of  people  was  held  in  Dublin,  and  the  movement  took 
shape.*  It  was  started  quite  independently  of  any  Irish 
Political  Party  by  men  strongly  opposed  to  any  political  con- 
nection of  Ireland  with  England.  By  June,  1914,  65,000  men 
were  reported  to  have  been  enrolled,  and  Mr.  Redmond  in  that 
month  succeeded  in  securing  the  addition  of  enough  members 
to  the  Committee  to  secure  to  himself  and  his  party  the  control 
of  the  movements  of  the  body,  to  the  great  dissatisfaction  of 
the  original  Founders.  On  the  eve  of  the  Prime  Minister's 
meeting  in  Dublin  on  the  25th  September,  1914 — where  Mr. 
Redmond  spoke  strongly  in  favour  of  recruiting — a  manifesto 
was  issued  attacking  Mr.  Redmond's  attitude  This  was 
signed  by  McNeill  and  six  others  (afterwards  involved  in  the 
Rebellion),  and  concluded  by  regretting  that  Sir  Roger 
Casement's  absence  prevented  his  being  a  signatory.  On 
September  30th  this  party  disassociated  themselves  from  the 
Irish  National  Volunteers  and  formed  a  new  Force  under  the 
name  of  the  Irish  Volunteers.  By  the  end  of  October  the 
force  enrolled  numbered  over  13,000,  including  2,000  in  Dublin. 
Of  these,  more  than  8,000  were  known  to  be  actively  engaged 
in  drilling  at  the  end  of  1914,  and  to  be  in  possession  of  over 
1,400  rifles. 

It  was  of  paramount  importance  that  after  the  outbreak  of 
the  present  war  no  opportunity  should  have  been  given  for 
*  "  Secret  History  of  the  Irish  Volunteers,"  by  The  O'Kahilly. 


APPENDIX  A 


229 


the  drilling  and  arming  of  any  body  of  men  known  to  be  of 
seditious  tendency,  and  no  other  consideration  should  have 
interfered  with  the  enforcing  of  this  duty.  After  the  war 
broke  out  there  was  a  considerable  wave  of  feeling  in  Ireland 
in  favour  of  the  Allies.  Reservists  joining  the  Colours  were 
greeted  with  enthusiasm,  and  recruiting  was  successful.  It 
was  owing  to  the  activities  of  the  leaders  of  the  Sinn  Fein 
movement  that  the  forces  of  disloyalty  gradually  and  steadily 
increased,  and  undermined  the  initial  sentiment  of  patriotism. 

The  words  "  Sinn  Fein  "  (ourselves  alone)  rather  describe 
a  movement  than  an  association,  and  the  principal  efforts  of 
those  connected  with  the  movement  before  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  had  been  active  opposition  to  any  recruiting  of 
Irishmen  for  the  British  Army  and  Navy,  and  a  passive 
opposition  to  all  Irish  parliamentary  parties.  From  the  fact 
that  some  leaders  of  the  Sinn  Fein  movement  also  led  the 
Irish  Volunteers,  the  latter  have  frequently  been  called  the 
Sinn  Fein  Volunteers,  and  the  two  expressions  from  the  end 
of  1914  are  synonymous.  Between  the  5th  August,  1914, 
and  the  5th  December,  1914,  there  was  no  law  in  force  pro- 
hibiting the  importation  of  arms  into  Ireland.  Certain 
warrants  had  been  issued  by  the  Lord  Lieutenant  authorising 
the  police  to  seize  arms,  but  on  the  5th  December  an  amend- 
ment of  the  Regulations  under  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act  em- 
powered the  police  to  seize  arms  and  explosives  which  might 
be  landed  on  the  coast,  an  exception  being  made  in  favour  of 
sporting  shot  guns,  which  was,  however,  cancelled  on  the 
5th  February,  1915.  Nevertheless,  arms  and  explosives 
continued  to  be  smuggled  into  Ireland.  A  flood  of  seditious 
literature  was  disseminated  by  the  leaders  of  the  Irish 
Volunteer  Party  early  in  the  War,  and  certain  newspapers 
were  suppressed,  but  according  to  the  statement  of  the  Under- 
Secretary  for  Ireland,  action  against  the  seditious  Press  was 
not  very  consistently  taken,  and  prominent  members  of  the 
Irish  Parliamentary  Party  were  strongly  against  newspaper 
suppression. 

By  the  end  of  March,  1915,  the  Irish  Volunteers  do  not 
appear  to  have  increased  much  in  numbers  although  they  had 
acquired  more  arms.  On  March  16th,  1915,  the  Defence  of 
the  Realm  Act,  Number  2,  was  passed,  by  which  any  British 


230   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


subject  could  claim  the  right  to  trial  by  jury  for  an  offence 
against  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  regulations,  and  this  Act 
to  a  great  extent  hampered  the  Irish  Executive  in  dealing 
with  cases  of  sedition  in  Ireland.  Insufficient  attention 
appears  to  have  been  paid  to  the  state  of  affairs  in  Ireland  in 
both  Houses  of  Parliament. 

Throughout  the  whole  of  the  remainder  of  the  year  1915 
the  Irish  Volunteer  Party  were  active  in  their  efforts  to 
encourage  sedition.  Seditious  papers  were  published, 
pamphlets  of  a  violent  tone  issued  and  circulated,  paid 
organisers  were  sent  throughout  the  country  to  enrol  and  drill 
volunteer  recruits,  and  the  leaders  themselves  were  active  in 
attending  anti-recruiting  meetings  at  which  disloyal  speeches 
were  openly  made.  A  considerable  number  of  the  younger 
members  of  the  priesthood  in  certain  districts  joined  in  the 
movement ,  and  schoolmasters  who  were  followers  of  the  Sinn 
Fein  movement  disseminated  treason  amongst  the  younger 
people  through  the  medium  of  the  Irish  language. 

Action  was  taken  during  this  period  against  seditious 
newspapers  and  against  certain  paid  organisers  of  the  Irish 
Volunteer  Party,  but  this  course  was  strongly  opposed  by 
members  of  the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party  and  the  Nationalist 
press.    Major  Price  in  his  evidence  says  : — 

"  One  unfortunate  thing  which  hindered  us  a  good  deal 
was  the  attitude  of  the  official  Nationalist  Party  and  their 
press.  Whenever  General  Friend  did  anything  strong  in 
the  way  of  suppressing  or  deporting  these  men  (the 
organisers)  from  Ireland,  they  at  once  deprecated  it, 
and  said  it  was  a  monstrous  thing  to  turn  a  man  out  of 
Ireland." 

Irishmen  no  doubt  appreciate  the  maintenance  of  order,  but 
they  appear  to  have  an  inveterate  prejudice  against  the 
punishment  of  disorder. 

So  seditious  had  the  country  become  during  1915,  that  juries 
in  Dublin  and  magistrates  in  various  parts  of  the 
country — through  fear  or  favour — could  not  be  trusted  to 
give  decisions  in  accordance  with  the  evidence.  The  only 
tribunals  which  could  be  relied  upon  at  this  time  were  those 
presided  over  by  resident  magistrates  in  Dublin  or  Belfast, 


APPENDIX  A 


231 


who  had  no  power  to  impose  a  greater  sentence  than  six 
months5  hard  labour. 

The  question  of  the  application  of  compulsory  service  gave 
a  great  stimulus  to  the  Irish  Volunteer  movement  in  the 
autumn  of  1915,  and  shortly  before  the  recent  outbreak  the 
number  of  Irish  Volunteers  was  estimated  by  the  police 
authorities  to  be  about  15,000,  armed  with  over  1,800  rifles 
and  about  the  same  number  of  shot  guns  and  pistols. 

During  the  greater  part  of  this  period  the  Citizen  Army 
remained  distinct  from  the  Irish  Volunteers.  The  movement 
which  led  to  the  formation  of  the  former  body,  composed 
chiefly  of  Dublin  workmen,  was  to  a  large  extent  inspired  by 
anarchist  sentiment  based  on  Irish  discontent.  The  leader 
was  Tames  Connolly,  who  is  described  as  a  man  of  great  energy 
and  ability.  By  the  month  of  November,  1915,  it  was  known 
that  the  two  bodies  were  acting  in  combination  in  Dublin. 

In  the  newspaper  The  Workers'  Republic,  edited  by  James 
Connolly,  the  following  passage  occurs  : — 

"  The  Irish  Citizen  Army  was  the  first  publicly  organised 
armed  citizen  force  south  of  the  Boyne.  Its  constitution 
pledged  and  still  pledges  its  members  to  work  for  an  Irish 
Republic  and  for  the  emancipation  of  labour." 

Throughout  the  whole  of  this  year  Ireland  was  in  a  state  of 
great  prosp.rity,  so  that  Irish  discontent  could  hardly  be 
attributed  to  economic  conditions,  except  that  the  housing 
conditions  of  the  working  classes  in  the  City  of  Dublin  might 
have  accounted  for  an  underlying  sense  of  dissatisfaction  with 
existing  authority. 

In  the  meantime  the  Volunteers  were  steadily  drilled  and 
practised  military  manoeuvres  by  day  and  night.  Ambulance 
classes  were  formed  in  imitation  of  a  similar  organisation  in 
Ulster  formed  by  the  Ulster  Volunteers.  In  Dublin  the 
Irish  Volunteers  held  officers'  training  schools  and  carried  out 
night  attacks,  and  some  manoeuvres  took  place  in  the  middle 
of  the  city  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Castle. 

During  this  period  the  National  or  Redmondite  Volunteers 
had  sunk  into  almost  complete  stagnation,  and  towards  the 
close  of  the  year  1915  the  largest  armed  and  drilled  force  in 


232   THE  IEISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 

the  provinces  of  Leinster,  Munster  and  Connaught — excluding 
soldiers — were  the  Irish  Volunteers. 

In  a  letter  intercepted  by  the  Censor  in  the  post  on  the 
24th  March,  1916,  and  believed  to  have  been  written  by  one 
of  the  teaching  staff  of  St.  Mary's  College,  Rathmines,  to  a 
friend  in  America,  the  following  extract  appears  and  is  of 
interest  as  an  indication  of  the  spirit  that  was  abroad  in 
disloyal  sections  of  the  community : — 

"  On  St.  Patrick's  Day  there  was  a  lot  of  people  put  into 
prison  under  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act.  There  was 
a  rumour  that  they  intended  to  seize  the  arms  of  the 
Volunteers.  The  Police  raided  a  lot  of  places  but  only  got 
one  fire-arm  in  a  house,  and  gave  up  the  job.  The  Castle 
is  watching  them  closely,  but  is  afraid  to  do  anything  against 
them.  There  was  a  march  in  the  streets  of  Dublin  right 
through  the  City  in  front  of  the  Foreign  College  of 
Trinity  and  before  the  Parliament  House.  The  Volunteers 
were  all  armed  with  rifles.  Eoin  McNeill  was  present, 
and  they  saluted  him  as  they  marched  by,  and  all  this 
under  the  nose  of  the  Castle.  It  is  a  dangerous  thing  to 
do,  but  the  Volunteers  do  not  care.  They  are  getting 
stronger  every  day.  Many  efforts  are  being  made  for  it 
is  known  now  that  they  are  our  only  hope  since  they  put 
conscription  down  sometime  ago.  Redmond  is  done  for. 
Whoever  wins  the  War  this  country  will  be  wronged  and 
plundered,  but  the  people  of  Ireland  are  not  disposed  of  yet. 
Their  spirit  is  always  improving  and  growing  more  Irish. 
One  thing  is  clear  if  not  others.  An  end  is  being  put  to  the 
rule  and  insolence  of  the  '  Peeler.'  They  are  not  nearly  so 
arrogant  as  they  used  to  be.  I  hope  to  God  we  may  see 
you  in  Ireland  when  you  have  finished  your  time  over  there. 
We  want  the  like  of  you  to  strike  a  blow  at  John  Bull. 
Easter  will  soon  be  over,  then  there  will  be  the  Summer 
coming  on.  May  and  June  will  pass  by — not  very  hot  as 
yet — and  then — you  know  as  well  as  I  do,  and  no  doubt 
much  better." 

Before  turning  to  the  events  of  the  present  year  it  is  desirable 
to  refer  to  the  confidential  reports  of  the  Inspector-General 
of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary  and  of  the  Chief  Commissioner 


APPENDIX  A 


233 


of  the  Dublin  Metropolitan  Police,  to  show  that  even  before 
the  outbreak  of  War  and  during  the  War,  full  knowledge  of  the 
existing  state  of  affairs  was  supplied  to  the  Under-Secretary, 
and  through  him  to  the  Chief  Secretary.  On  the  15th  June, 
1914,  a  report  was  submitted  from  the  office  of  the  Inspector- 
General  in  which  it  was  stated  : — 

"  In  Ireland  the  training  and  drilling  to  the  use  of  arms 
of  a  great  part  of  the  male  population  is  a  new  departure 
which  is  bound  in  the  not  distant  future  to  alter  all  the 
existing  conditions  of  life.  Obedience  to  the  law  has  never 
been  a  prominent  characteristic  of  the  people.  In  times  of 
passion  or  excitement  the  law  has  only  been  maintained  by 
force,  and  this  has  been  rendered  practicable  owing  to  the 
want  of  cohesion  among  the  crowds  hostile  to  the  police. 
If  the  people  became  armed  and  drilled  effective  police  con- 
trol will  vanish.  Events  are  moving.  Each  county  will 
soon  have  a  trained  army  far  outnumbering  the  police,  and 
those  who  control  the  volunteers  will  be  in  a  position  to 
dictate  to  what  extent  the  law  of  the  land  may  be  carried 
into  effect. " 

As  early  as  the  7th  September,  1914,  the  Dublin 
Metropolitan  Police  were  warning  the  Government  of  the 
danger  to  be  expected  within  Dublin  itself.  On  that  date  the 
following  statement  was  made  to  the  Government : — 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  so  far  as  Dublin  is  concerned  the 
majority  of  the  Irish  National  Volunteers  would  follow  the 
lead  of  the  extreme  section,  and  hints  have  been  given  that 
they  are  not  without  hope  of  being  able  to  assume  and  establish 
control  of  the  Government  of  Ireland  before  the  present  diffi- 
culties are  over,  and  that  they  may  attempt  some  escapade 
before  long." 

On  the  26th  October,  1914,  the  Detective  Department  of  the 
Dublin  Metropolitan  Police  submitted  to  the  Under-Secretary 
notes  of  the  speeches  made  by  the  Irish  Volunteers  at  their 
first  Annual  Convention.  The  demonstrators  had  marched  to 
the  meeting  nearly  1,000  strong,  230  of  their  number  armed 
with  rifles  and  20  of  the  National  Boys  Scouts  similarly 


234   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


equipped.  Speeches  of  the  most  inflammatory  and  revolu- 
tionary character  were  delivered.  The  leaders  predicted  re- 
bellion and  the  shedding  of  blood  "  in  the  great  fight  of  Ireland 
against  the  British  Empire." 

These  documents  were  seen  by  the  Chief  Secretary,  but  he 
wrote  no  comment  on  .their  contents,  and  no  proceedings  were 
taken. 

From  the  commencement  the  Dublin  Metropolitan  Police 
were  in  all  respects  as  diligent  as  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary 
in  forwarding  to  the  Government  regular  information  as  to 
the  conduct  and  progress  of  the  hostile  organisations  within 
their  jurisdiction. 

In  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Inspector-General,  delivered  at 
the  end  of  the  year  1914,  the  following  words  occur  :  "  In  the 
personnel  of  the  Committee,  in  its  declaration  of  policy,  in  the 
utterances  of  its  leading  representatives  in  the  Press,  and  at 
public  meetings,  in  its  opposition  to  the  efforts  of  Mr.  Redmond 
and  the  Irish  Parliamentary  Party  to  bring  Ireland  into  line 
at  the  present  national  crisis,  and  in  its  crusade  against  enlist- 
ment in  the  Army,  the  Irish  Volunteer  organisation  has  shown 
itself  to  be  disloyal,  seditious,  and  revolutionary,  if  the  means 
and  opportunity  were  at  hand." 

On  the  12th  February,  1915,  a  further  report  was  sub- 
mitted, in  which  it  was  stated  that  at  certain  meetings  of  the 
Irish  Republican  Brotherhood  in  Tyrone  members  were  re- 
minded of  the  opportunity  afforded  by  the  present  crisis  to 
strike  a  blow  for  the  independence  of  Ireland,  and  they  were 
promised  arms  and  ammunition  when  the  time  arrived. 

At  certain  places  in  Co.  Wexford  after  the  promulgation  of 
military  orders  under  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act  for  the 
action  of  the  inhabitants  in  the  event  of  an  invasion,  counter 
notices  were  placarded  calling  on  the  people  to  disobey  the 
orders  issued,  and  to  welcome  the  German  troops  as  friends. 

In  a  report  submitted  on  the  13th  July,  1915,  it  was  stated 
that  information  had  been  received  from  a  reliable  source  that 
a  sum  of  3,000  dollars  had  been  recently  sent  from  America 
to  the  Council  of  the  Irish  Volunteers. 

In  a  report  submitted  on  the  14th  September,  1915,  the 
following  passage  occurs  : — 

"  According  to  the  information  confidentially  obtained, 


APPENDIX  A 


235 


communications  are  passing  between  the  leaders  of  the 
Clan-na-Gael  in  America  and  the  Sinn  Fein  in  Ireland, 
and  money  has  been  sent  over  to  the  latter  to  help  them 
in  a  campaign  of  disloyalty.  As  the  leaders  of  the  Irish 
Volunteers  apparently  aim  at  National  independence, 
the  force  bears  resemblance  to  the  old  Fenian  movement, 
but  unlike  the  latter  is  ready  to  drill  and  arm  its  members 
and  is  not  regarded  as  a  secret  society.  As  already  reported, 
according  to  the  confidential  information,  at  a  meeting 
of  the  Council  of  Irish  Volunteers  held  in  Dublin  on  the  30th 
May,  1915,  Professor  McNeill  in  the  chair,  a  resolution 
in  favour  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  declaring  themselves  in 
favour  of  immediate  insurrection,  proposed  by  Bulmer 
Hobson,  was  only  defeated  by  the  casting  vote  of 
Professor  McNeill." 

A  report  dated  the  13th  November,  1915,  contained  the 
following  statement : — 

"  This  force  is  disloyal  and  bitterly  Anti-British  and 
is  daily  improving  its  organisation.  Some  drill  is  practised, 
but  its  activities  are  mainly  directed  to  promoting  sedition 
and  hindering  recruitment  for  the  Army,  and  it  is  now 
pledged  to  resist  Conscription  with  arms.  According  to 
information  from  a  reliable  source  the  Sinn  Feiners  have 
already  planned  a  rising  in  the  event  of  Conscription,  and 
as  this  is  perhaps  the  one  object  in  which  they  would  find 
many  Redmondites  in  agreement  with  them,  they  might 
give  a  serious  amount  of  trouble/' 

On  the  14th  December,  1915,  a  report  was  submitted  that : — 
"  The  Irish  Volunteers  were  very  active  during  the  month 
and  gained  1,300  new  members.  Lieutenant  O'Leary,  V.C., 
was  hooted  and  insulted  by  a  party  of  volunteers  route 
marching.  A  party  of  800  held  military  manoeuvres  at 
Artane,  Co.  Dublin.  The  liberty  of  action  at  present  en- 
joyed by  the  openly  disloyal  and  hostile  Sinn  Feiners  is 
having  a  very  undesirable  effect." 

On  the  29th  November,  1915,  a  special  report  was  delivered 
which  deserves  study.    It  contains  the  following  statement : — 
4 '  It  is  a  fact  that  this  body  of  Irish  Volunteers  numbers 


236    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


10,000  strong  in  the  provinces  with  control  of  1,500  rifles 
and  possibly  more,  thoroughly  disloyal  and  hostile  to 
British  Government,  is  apparently  now  on  the  increase, 
and  I  desire  to  point  out  that  it  might  rapidly  assume 
dimensions  sufficient  to  cause  anxiety  to  the  military  autho- 
rities. As  it  is  in  the  event  of  an  invasion,  or  of  any  impor- 
tant reverse  to  our  troops  in  the  field,  the  Irish  Volunteer 
Force  would  seriously  embarrass  arrangements  for  home 
defence.'' 

In  addition  to  the  information  contained  in  the  above- 
mentioned  reports  of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary,  Lord 
Midleton  in  November,  1915,  had  an  interview  with  the  Chief 
Secretary  in  which  he  strongly  urged  that  the  Irish  Volunteers 
should  be  disarmed,  and  not  permitted  to  parade,  and  he 
pressed  for  the  prosecution  of  those  responsible  for  seditious 
speeches.    His  warnings  were  entirely  neglected. 

On  the  18th  December,  1915,  a  letter  was  sent  by  the  Under- 
Secretary  to  the  Chief  Secretary,  of  which  the  following 
passage  is  an  extract : — 

"  What  is  Redmond  up  to  with  his  comparisons  between 
Ireland  and  Great  Britain  in  the  matters  of  Police  and 
Crime  ?  He  knows,  or  should  know,  after  what  Dillon  wrote 
to  him  over  a  month  ago  in  the  enclosed  '  confidential ' 
letter  and  repeated  verbally  on  the  3rd  inst.  The  present 
situation  in  Ireland  is  most  serious  and  menacing.  Redmond 
himself  sent  me  the  other,  '  private  '  enclosure  on  the  9th. 
He  knows,  or  should  know,  that  the  enrolled  strength  of 
the  active  Sinn  Fein  Volunteers  has  increased  by  a  couple 
of  thousand  members  in  the  last  two  months  to  a  total  of 
some  13,500,  and  each  group  of  these  is  a  centre  of  revolu- 
tionary propaganda.  He  knows,  or  should  know,  that 
efforts  are  being  made  to  get  arms  for  the  support  of 
this  propaganda — that  the  Irish  Volunteers  have  already 
some  2,500  rifles,  that  they  have  their  eyes  on  the  10,000 
in  the  hands  of  the  supine  National  Volunteers,  and  that 
they  are  endeavouring  to  supplement  their  rifles  with  shot 
guns,  revolvers  and  pistols.  New  measures  possibly  re- 
quiring additional  police  at  the  ports  will  be  required  to 


APPENDIX  A 


237 


counter  these  attempts,  and  unless  in  other  matters  we  keep 
these  revolutionaries  under  observation,  we  shall  not  be  in 
a  position  to  deal  with  the  outbreak,  which  we  hope  will 
not  occur,  but  which  undoubtedly  will  follow  any  attempt 
to  enforce  conscription,  or  even  if  there  is  no  such  attempt 
might  take  place  as  a  result  of  continual  unsuccess  of  the 
British  Arms." 

On  the  8th  January,  1915,  Lord  Midleton  called  attention 
in  the  House  of  Lords  to  the  condition  of  Ireland.  In  the 
course  of  his  evidence  he  said  :  "I  also  named  four  seditious 
newspapers,  and  pressed  the  Government  to  oppose  them,  and 
to  say  exactly  what  was  the  status  of  the  Irish  Volunteers. 
Lord  Crewe's  reply,  which  I  hand  in,  minimised  the  increase 
of  the  organisation,  expressed  sanguine  hopes  that  regulations 
issued  by  the  Military  authorities  would  practically  put  a  stop 
to  this  dissemination  of  seditious  newspapers,  and  undertook, 
under  renewed  pressure  from  me,  that  the  full  attention  of  the 
Irish  Government  and  the  Military  authorities  would  be  given 
to  the  status  of  the  Volunteers.  Lord  Midleton  further  said  : 
"  On  the  26th  January,  1916,  I  had  an  interview  with  the 
Prime  Minister  by  appointment,  and  I  brought  all  these  facts 
before  him.  The  Prime  Minister  asked  me  to  hand  him  a 
memorandum  giving  the  views  which  had  been  placed  into 
my  hands,  into  which  he  undertook  to  make  most  careful 
examination.  I  sent  him  subsequently  at  his  wish  a  memo- 
randum which  I  produce."  He  added  :  "I  had  an  appoint- 
ment with  the  Prime  Minister  for  the  14th  March  on  another 
very  important  subject,  and  I  proposed  then  to  lay  before  him 
the  Report  of  this  Committee  "  (which  had  met  to  discuss 
this  subject)  "  and  to  give  him  a  copy  of  it.  Unfortunately 
the  Prime  Minister  was  taken  ill  on  the  13th,  and  subsequently 
had  to  go  to  Rome.  In  the  result  the  interview  never  took 
place." 

Besides  the  warnings  above  mentioned  Lord  Midleton  gave 
further  warnings  at  later  periods.  In  his  evidence  he  stated 
that  on  February  28th  he  saw  Sir  Matthew  Nathan,  and  on 
March  6th  Lord  Wimborne,  and  that : — 

"  All  the  questions  which  had  been  discussed  before 


238    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


were  brought  up  at  this  meeting,  and  Sir  Matthew  Nathan 
especially  pressed  on  me  that  since  our  previous  interview 
the  movement  had  been  developing  much  more  seriously 
in  Dublin.  He  mentioned  to  me  the  names  of  those  who 
were  known  to  the  Government  as  the  chief  conspirators 
and  urged  me  to  read  as  a  specimen  an  article  by  Sheehy- 
Skeffington  in  the  January  or  February  number  of  the 
Century.  I  felt  so  strongly  that  Sir  Matthew  had  not  the 
necessary  powers  that  I  asked  the  Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland 
whether  I  could  go  over  and  see  him,  and  as  he  was  n 
London  he  was  good  enough  to  arrange  a  meeting  with  me 
on  March  6th  in  Arlington  Street.  I  found  Lord  Wimborne 
took  rather  a  more  favourable  view  of  the  position  in 
Ireland  than  Sir  Matthew  Nathan  .  .  .  but  the  general 
trend  of  the  conversation  showed  that  he  was  most  anxious 
to  deal  with  some  of  the  ringleaders,  and  I  gathered,  al- 
though he  did  not  say  so  in  words,  he  was  unable  to  move 
further  owing  to  the  general  attitude  of  the  Government 
towards  Ireland  which  it  was  impossible  to  disturb." 

Between  January,  1916,  and  the  outbreak  of  the  insurrection, 
the  Irish  Volunteers  steadily  increased  in  numbers  and  dis- 
cipline. During  this  time  they  were  known  to  be  supplying 
themselves  with  quantities  of  arms  and  high  explosives  by 
theft,  or  otherwise,  when  opportunity  offered.  In  the  early 
months  of  the  year  the  state  of  various  parts  of  the  country 
was  known  to  be  lawless.  In  January  the  heads  of  the  Royal 
Irish  Constabulary  submitted  to  the  Under  Secretary  sug- 
gestions for  the  amendment  of  the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act 
and  Regulations.  They  pointed  out  that  trial  by  jury  had 
proved  to  be  a  failure,  and  that  in  many  parts  of  Ireland  the 
magistrates  could  not  be  relied  upon  to  enforce  the  existing 
regulations.  A  conference  was  held  at  the  Castle  to  consider 
these  recommendations  early  in  February.  Amendments  of 
the  law  and  prohibition  of  the  carrying  of  arms  by  the  Irish 
Volunteers  were  suggested  as  remedial  measures  in  a  carefully 
written  paper  of  recommendations  submitted  to  the  conference. 
It  was  attended  by  Mr.  O'Connell,  Deputy  Inspector-General 
of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary,  the  Under  Secretary,  General 
Friend,  and  the  Solicitor-General.    The  only  suggestion  dis- 


APPENDIX  A 


239 


cussed  was  that  dealing  with  explosives — the  more  serious 
matters  were  not  even  brought  forward.  Upon  this  point 
Mr.  O'Connell  remarked  : — "  It  was  my  impression,  rightly  or 
wrongly,  that  they  had  been  discussed  by  higher  authorities." 

The  publication  of  newspapers  containing  seditious  articles 
continued  during  the  spring  of  1916.  A  number  of  seditious 
books  called  "  Tracts  for  the  Times  "  were  circulated.  Major 
Price,,  of  the  Army  Intelligence  Department,  informed  the 
Commission  that  he  had  consultations  with  regard  to  this 
matter,  but  added  : — "  I  liken  myself  to  John  the  Baptist 
preaching  in  the  Wilderness  as  to  taking  steps  on  the  subject. 
The  Civil  Authorities  did  not  think  it  desirable  to  take  steps." 

On  St.  Patrick's  Day,  the  17th  of  March,  there  was  a  parade 
of  the  Irish  Volunteers  throughout  the  Provinces,  under  orders 
from  their  Headquarters.  About  4,500  turned  out,  of  whom 
1.817  were  armed.  The  report  of  the  Inspector-General  of  the 
Royal  Irish  Constabulary,  dealing  with  this  parade,  contained 
the  following  remarks  : — 

"  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Irish  Volunteer  leaders 
are  a  pack  of  rebels  who  would  proclaim  their  independence 
in  the  event  of  any  favourable  opportunity,  but  with  their 
present  resources  and  without  substantial  reinforcements  it 
is  difficult  to  imagine  that  they  will  make  even  a  brief 
stand  against  a  small  body  of  troops.  These  observations, 
however,  are  made  with  reference  to  the  Provinces  and  not 
to  the  Dublin  Metropolitan  area,  which  is  the  centre  of  the 
movement." 

At  the  end  of  last  March  the  Council  of  the  Irish  Volunteers 
assembled  in  Dublin,  and  issued  a  manifesto  warning  the  public 
that  the  Volunteers  : — 

"  Cannot  submit  to  be  disarmed,  and  that  the  raiding  for 
arms  and  the  attempted  disarming  of  meri,  therefore,  in  the 
natural  course  of  things  can  only  be  met  by  resistance  and 
bloodshed." 

On  the  7th  April,  1916,  public  meetings  of  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers were  held  for  the  purposes  of  protesting  against  the 
deportation  orders  and  to  enlist  recruits.    The  speeches  were 


240   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


very  violent,  threats  being  used  that  persons  attempting  to 
disarm  the  volunteers  would  be  "  shot  dead." 

The  Chief  Commissioner  made  a  report  to  the  Under 
Secretary,  and  that  document  shows  clearly  the  view  that 
Colonel  Edgeworth-Johnstone  took  of  the  situation  : — 

"  These  recruiting  meetings  are  a  very  undesirable  de- 
velopment, and  are  I  think  causing  both  annoyance 
and  uneasiness  amongst  loyal  citizens.  .  .  .  The  Sinn 
Fein  party  are  gaining  in  numbers,  in  equipment,  in 
discipline,  and  in  confidence,  and  I  think  drastic  action 
should  be  taken  to  limit  their  activities.  The  longer 
this  is  postponed  the  more  difficult  it  will  be  to  carry 
out." 

This  report  reached  the  Under  Secretary  on  the  10th  April, 
who  wrote  on  it  ' 4  Chief  Secretary  and  the  Lord  Lieutenant  to 
see  the  Chief  Commissioner's  minute."  On  the  12th  the  Chief 
Secretary  wrote  upon  it,  "  Requires  careful  consideration.  Is 
it  thought  practicable  to  undertake  a  policy  of  disarmament, 
and,  if  so,  within  what  limits,  if  any,  can  such  a  policy  be 
circumscribed  ?  "  Upon  the  same  day  the  Lord  Lieutenant 
wrote  upon  it,  "  This  is  a  difficult  point ;  could  the  disarming 
be  satisfactorily  effected  ?  " 

No  answer  to  the  minute  was  returned  to  the  Royal  Irish 
Constabulary,  and  the  file  did  not  find  its  way  back  to  the 
Inspector-General  until  the  24th  May. 

For  some  months  before  the  rising,  a  newspaper  campaign 
was  carried  on  suggesting  that  if  an  attempt  were  made  by  the 
Government  to  disarm  the  Irish  Volunteers,  it  could  only  arise 
from  the  deliberate  intention  of  Englishmen  to  provoke  dis- 
order and  bloodshed. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  these  articles  were  intended  to 
intimidate  the  Irish  Government,  and  to  prevent  their  taking 
active  repressive  measures. 

On  the  18th  April  news  reached  Dublin  Castle  that  a  ship 
had  left  Germany  for  Ireland  on  April  12th,  accompanied  by 
two  German  submarines,  but  the  news  was  accompanied  by  a 
caution  as  to  its  accuracy.  The  statement  added  that  the  ship 
was  due  to  arrive  on  the  21st,  and  that  a  rising  was  timed  for 
Easter  Eve.    On  the  19th  April  a  special  meeting  of  the 


APPENDIX  A 


241 


Dublin  Corporation  was  held  at  the  Mansion  House  to  discuss 
the  police  rate.  Alderman  Thomas  Kelly,  in  the  course  of  a 
speech  attacking  Mr.  Justice  Kenny  (who  had  alluded  at  the 
opening  of  his  Commission  to  the  state  of  disorder  in  Dublin 
and  had  urged  military  action),  made  a  statement  to  the  effect 
that  he  had  received  that  morning  from  the  Editor  of  New 
Ireland  a  circular  which  he  would  read.  It  was  from  a  man 
named  Little,  New  Ireland  Office,  13  Fleet  Street,  Dublin, 
16th  April,  1916  :— 

"  Sm, — The  gravity  of  the  present  situation  in  Ireland 
compels  me  to  invite  your  serious  attention  to  the 
enclosed.  It  is  a  copy  of  portion  of  a  document  recently 
addressed  to,  and  on  the  files  in,  Dublin  Castle.  In  view 
of  the  deliberate  intention  here  revealed  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  to  cause  bloodshed  in  Ireland  by  an  attack  on 
the  Irish  Volunteers — a  body  formed  openly  in  pre-war  times 
— in  a  manner  certain  to  provoke  armed  resistance,  I  appeal  to 
you  to  use  your  influence,  public  and  private,  in  whatever 
manner  you  may  consider  would  best  benefit  this  country. 
The  cipher  from  which  this  document  is  copied  does  not  indi- 
cate punctuation  or  capitals. 

"  The  following  precautionary  measures  have  been 
sanctioned  by  the  Irish  Office  on  the  recommendation 
of  the  General  Officer  Commanding  the  Forces  in  Ireland. 
All  preparations  will  be  made  to  put  these  measures  in 
force  immediately  on  receipt  of  an  Order  issued  from  the 
Chief  Secretary's  Office,  Dublin  Castle,  and  signed  by 
the  Under  Secretary  and  the  General  Officer  Com- 
manding the  Forces  in  Ireland.  First,  the  following 
persons  to  be  placed  under  arrest : — All  members  of  the 
Sinn  Fein  National  Council,  the  Central  Executive  Irish 
Sinn  Fein  Volunteers,  General  Council  Irish  Sinn  Fein 
Volunteers,  County  Board  Irish  Sinn  Fein  Volunteers, 
Executive  Committee  National  Volunteers,  Coisde  Gnota 
Committee  Gaelic  League.  See  list  A  3  and  4  and 
supplementary  list  A  2  .  .  .  Dublin  Metropolitan  Police 
and  Royal  Irish  Constabulary  forces  in  Dublin  City  will  be 
confined  to  barracks  under  the  direction  of  the  Competent 
Military  Authority.    An  order  will  be  issued  to  inhabi- 

Q 


242   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


tants  of  city  to  remain  in  their  houses  until  such  time  as  the 
Competent  Military  Authority  may  otherwise  direct  or  per- 
mit. Pickets  chosen  from  units  of  Territorial  Forces  will 
be  placed  at  all  points  marked  on  maps  3  and  4.  Accom- 
panying mounted  patrols  will  continuously  visit  all  points 
and  report  every  hour.  The  following  premises  will  be 
occupied  by  adequate  forces,  and  all  necessary  measures 
used  without  need  of  reference  to  headquarters.  First,  pre- 
mises known  as  Liberty  Hall,  Beresford  Place  ;  No.  6 
Harcourt  Street,  Sinn  Fein  Building  ;  No.  2  Dawson  Street, 
Headquarters,  Volunteers  ;  No.  12  D'Olier  Street,  Nationality 
Office  ;  No.  25  Rutland  Square,  Gaelic  League  Office  ;  41 
Rutland  Square,  Foresters'  Hall  ;  Sinn  Fein  Volunteer 
premises  in  city  ;  all  National  Volunteer  premises  in  the  city  ; 
Trades  Council  premises,  Capel  Street ;  Surrey  House,  Leinster 
Road,  Rathmines.  The  following  premises  will  be  isolated, 
and  all  communications  to  or  from  prevented  : — Premises 
known  as  Archbishop's  House,  Drumcondr a;  Mansion  House, 
Dawson  Street ;  No.  40  Herbert  Park  ;  Larkfield,  Kimmage 
Road  ;  Woodtown  Park,  Ballyboden  ;  Saint  Enda's  College, 
Hermitage,  Rathfarnham  ;  and  in  addition  premises  in  list  5 
D,  see  maps  3  and  4." 

Alderman  Kelly,  in  continuing,  said  that  the  document  was 
evidently  genuine,  and  that  he  had  done  a  public  service  in 
drawing  attention  to  it,  in  order  to  prevent  these  military 
operations  being  carried  on  in  a  city  which  he  declared  was 
under  God  the  most  peaceable  in  Europe. 

This  document  was  an  entire  fabrication.  Copies  of  it  found 
since  the  outbreak  are  shown  by  identification  of  type  to  have 
been  printed  at  Liberty  Hall,  the  headquarters  of  the  Citizen 
Army.  It  is  not  known  who  was  the  author  of  this  invention, 
or  whether  Mr.  Little  was  in  any  way  responsible  for  it.  Many 
copies  of  this  forged  document  were  printed  and  distributed, 
and  it  was  widely  considered  by  the  people  to  be  genuine,  and 
no  doubt  led  to  the  belief  by  the  members  of  the  Irish  Volun- 
teers and  Citizen  Army  that  they  would  shortly  be  disarmed. 
This  undoubtedly  became  one  of  the  proximate  causes  of  the 
outbreak. 

On  the  22nd  April,  1916,  the  news  of  the  capture  of  the 


APPENDIX  A 


243 


German  ship  and  of  the  arrest  of  a  man  believed  to  be  Sir 
Roger  Casement  was  published  The  Irish  Volunteer  news- 
paper announced  in  its  issue  of  that  day  under  the  title  of 
Headquarters'  Bulletin  : — 

"  Arrangements  are  now  nearing  completion  in  all  the 
more  important  brigade  areas  for  the  holding  of  a  very 
interesting  series  of  manoeuvres  at  Easter.  In  some 
instances  the  arrangements  contemplate  a  one  or  two 
day  bivouac.  As  for  Easter,  the  Dublin  programme 
may  well  stand  as  a  model  for  other  areas." 

Reference  was  also  made  to  a  more  elaborate  series  of 
manoeuvres  at  Whitsuntide. 

It  is  clear  that  the  leaders  of  the  movement  expected  the 
arrival  of  the  ship,  since  emissaries  of  the  Irish  Volunteers 
were  sent  to  meet  it.  The  vessel,  however,  and  Sir  Roger 
Casement  appear  to  have  arrived  a  little  sooner  than  was 
expected. 

On  the  news  of  the  capture  of  the  ship  orders  were  given  at 
the  Headquarters  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  cancelling  throughout 
all  Ireland  the  arrangements  for  the  following  day — Sunday. 
The  order  was  signed  "  McNeill,  Chief  of  Staff."  This  appeared 
in  the  early  evening  papers  of  Saturday,  the  22nd  April. 

In  the  evening  of  the  22nd  it  was  known  to  the  authorities 
that  the  man  arrested  was  Sir  Roger  Casement.  A  conference 
was  held  at  Dublin  Castle  on  the  same  evening.  The  abandon- 
ment of  the  parade  of  the  Volunteers  for  Sunday  was  then 
known.  No  movements  of  the  Volunteers  took  place  on  that 
day.  A  report  was  received  on  Sunday  afternoon  that  there 
had  been  a  robbery  under  arms  at  about  8  o'clock  a.m.  of 
250  lbs.  of  gelignite  from  quarries  a  few  miles  south-west  of 
Dublin,  and  that  it  was  believed  the  stolen  material,  or  part 
of  it,  had  been  taken  to  Liberty  Hall.  Conferences  held  during 
Sunday,  the  23rd  April,  at  the  Castle  are  fully  detailed  in  the 
evidence  of  Lord  Wimborne,  Sir  Matthew  Nathan  and  other 
witnesses.  It  was  eventually  decided  that  the  proper  course 
was  to  arrest  all  the  leaders  of  the  movement,  there  being  by 
this  time  clear  evidence  of  their  "  hostile  association,"  but  it 
was  agreed  that  before  this  could  be  safely  done  military 


244    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


preparations  sufficient  to  overawe  armed  opposition  should  be 
secured. 

Early  in  the  morning  of  the  24th  April  the  Chief  Secretary's 
concurrence  with  the  proposed  arrest  and  internment  in 
England  of  the  hostile  leaders  was  asked  for  and  obtained, 
but  before  any  further  effective  steps  could  be  taken  the  in- 
surrection had  broken  out,  and  by  noon  many  portions  of  the 
Cit}'  of  Dublin  had  been  simultaneously  occupied  by  rebellious 
armed  forces. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  outbreak  had  been  carefully 
planned  beforehand.  A  pocketbook  discovered  upon  one  of 
the  rebels  who  took  part  in  the  rising  in  Wexford  contained 
a  list  of  the  places  actually  seized  in  Dublin  when  the  outbreak 
occurred. 

Conclusions. 

It  is  outside  the  scope  of  Your  Majesty's  instructions  to  us 
to  enquire  how  far  the  policy  of  the  Irish  Executive  was 
adopted  by  the  Cabinet  as  a  whole,  or  to  attach  responsibility 
to  any  but  the  Civil  and  Military  Executive  in  Ireland  ;  but 
the  general  conclusion  that  we  draw  from  the  evidence  before 
us  is  that  the  main  cause  of  the  rebellion  appears  to  be  that 
lawlessness  was  allowed  to  grow  up  unchecked,  and  that 
Ireland  for  several  years  past  has  been  administered  on  the 
principle  that  it  was  safer  and  more  expedient  to  leave  law  in 
abeyance  if  collision  with  any  faction  of  the  Irish  people  could 
thereby  be  avoided. 

Such  a  policy  is  the  negation  of  that  cardinal  rule  of  govern- 
ment which  demands  that  the  enforcement  of  law  and  the 
preservation  of  order  should  always  be  independent  of  political 
expediency. 

We  consider  that  the  importation  of  large  quantities  of 
arms  into  Ireland  after  the  lapse  of  the  Arms  Act,  and  the 
toleration  of  drilling  by  large  bodies  of  men,  first  in  Ulster, 
and  then  in  other  districts  of  Ireland,  created  conditions  which 
rendered  possible  the  recent  troubles  in  Dublin  and  elsewhere. 

It  appears  to  us  that  reluctance  was  shown  by  the  Irish 
Government  to  repress  by  prosecution  written  and  spoken 
seditious  utterances,  and  to  suppress  the  drilling  and  manoeuvr- 
ing of  armed  forces  known  to  be  under  the  control  of  men 


APPENDIX  A 


245 


who  were  openly  declaring  their  hostility  to  your  Majesty's 
Government  and  their  readiness  to  welcome  and  assist  your 
Majesty's  enemies. 

This  reluctance  was  largely  prompted  by  the  pressure 
brought  to  bear  by  the  Parliamentary  representatives  of  the 
Irish  people,  and  in  Ireland  itself  there  developed  a  widespread 
belief  that  no  repressive  measures  would  be  undertaken  by  the 
Government  against  sedition.  This  led  to  a  rapid  increase 
of  preparations  for  insurrection  and  was  the  immediate  cause 
of  the  recent  outbreak. 

We  are  of  opinion  that  from  the  commencement  of  the 
present  War  all  seditious  utterances  and  publications  should 
have  been  firmly  suppressed  at  the  outset,  and  if  juries  or 
magistrates  were  found  unwilling  to  enforce  this  policy  further 
powers  should  have  been  invoked  under  the  existing  Acts  for 
the  Defence  of  the  Realm. 

We  are  also  of  opinion  that  on  the  outbreak  of  war  all 
drilling  and  manoeuvring  by  unrecognised  bodies  of  men, 
whether  armed  or  unarmed,  should  have  been  strictly  pro- 
hibited, and  that  as  soon  as  it  became  known  to  the  Irish 
Government  that  the  Irish  Volunteers  and  the  Citizen  Army 
were  under  the  control  of  men  prepared  to  assist  your  Majesty's 
enemies  if  the  opportunity  should  be  offered  to  them,  all 
drilling  and  open  carrying  of  arms  by  these  bodies  of  men 
should  have  been  forcibly  suppressed. 

It  does  not  appear  to  be  disputed  that  the  authorities  in  the 
spring  of  1916,  while  believing  that  the  seditious  bodies  would 
not  venture  unaided  to  break  into  insurrection,  were  con- 
vinced that  they  were  prepared  to  assist  a  German  landing. 

We  are  further  of  opinion  that  at  the  risk  of  a  collision  early 
steps  should  have  been  taken  to  arrest  and  posecute  leaders 
ani  organisers  of  sedition. 

For  the  reasons  before  given,  we  do  not  think  that  any 
responsibility  rests  upon  the  Lord  Lieutenant.  He  was 
appointed  in  February.  1915,  and  was  in  no  way  answerable 
for  the  policy  of  the  Government. 

We  are,  however,  of  the  opinion  that  the  Chief  Secretary 
as  the  administrative  head  of  your  Majesty's  Government 
in  Ireland  is  primarily  responsible  for  the  situation  that  was 
allowed  to  arise  and  the  outbreak  that  occurred. 


246    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


Sir  Matthew  Nathan  assumed  office  as  Under  Secretary  to 
the  Irish  Government  in  September,  1914,  only.  In  our  view 
he  carried  out  with  the  utmost  loyalty  the  policy  of  the 
Government,  and  of  his  immediate  superior  the  Chief  Secretary, 
but  we  consider  that  he  did  not  sufficiently  impress  upon  the 
Chief  Secretary  during  the  latter's  prolonged  absences  from 
Dublin  the  necessity  for  more  active  measures  to  remedy  the 
situation  in  Ireland,  which  on  December  18th  last,  in  a  letter 
to  the  Chief  Secretary,  he  described  as  "  most  serious  and 
menacing." 

We  are  satisfied  that  Sir  Neville  Chamberlain,  the  Inspector- 
General  of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary,  and  Colonel 
Edgeworth-Johnstone,  the  Chief  Commissioner  of  the  Dublin 
Metropolitan  Police,  required  their  subordinates  to  furnish, 
and  did  receive  from  their  subordinates,  full  and  exact  reports 
as  to  the  nature,  progress  and  aims  of  the  various  armed 
associations  in  Ireland.  From  these  sources  the  Government 
had  abundant  material  on  which  they  could  have  acted  many 
months  before  the  leaders  themselves  contemplated  any 
actual  rising. 

For  the  conduct,  zeal  and  loyalty  of  the  Royal  Irish  Con- 
stabulary and  the  Dublin  Metropolitan  Police  we  have  noth- 
ing but  praise. 

We  do  not  attach  any  responsibility  to  the  Military 
authorities  in  Ireland  for  the  rebellion  or  its  results.  As  long 
as  Ireland  was  under  civil  government  those  authorities  had 
nothing  to  do  with  the  suppression  of  sedition.  Their  duties 
were  confined  to  securing  efficiency  in  their  own  ranks  and  to 
the  promotion  of  recruiting,  and  they  could  only  aid  in  the 
suppression  of  disorder  when  duly  called  on  by  the  civil  power. 
By  the  middle  of  1915  it  was  obvious  to  the  Military 
authorities  that  their  efforts  in  favour  of  recruiting  were  being 
frustrated  by  the  hostile  activities  of  the  Sinn  Fein  supporters, 
and  they  made  representations  to  the  Government  to  that 
effect.  The  general  danger  of  the  situation  was  clearly  pointed 
out  to  the  Irish  Government  by  the  Military  Authorities,  on 
their  own  initiative,  in  February  last,  but  the  warning  fell  on 
unheeding  ears. 

In  conclusion,  we  desire  to  place  on  record  our  high  apprecia- 
tion of  the  services  rendered  with  ability  and  energy  by  our 


APPENDIX  A 


247 


Honorary  Secretary.  For  several  months  Mr.  Grimwood 
Hears  gave  his  services  voluntarily  to  the  Government  in  their 
investigation  into  cases  of  alleged  German  atrocities,  and 
subsequently  served  as  joint  Honorary  Secretary  to  the 
Committee  on  alleged  German  outrages,  generally  known  as 
Lord  Bryce's  Committee.  The  experience  thus  gained  by 
him  has  been  of  great  advantage  to  your  Majesty's  Com- 
missioners. 

We  offer  our  cordial  thanks  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Com- 
mission for  the  assistance  he  has  given  us  in  the  performance 
of  our  task. 

All  which  we  humbly  submit  and  report  for  your  Majesty's 
gracious  consideration. 

(Signed)      HARDIXGE  OF  PEXSHURST, 
MONTAGUE  SHEARMAN, 
MACKENZIE  DALZELL  CHALMERS. 

E.  GRDnYOOD  MEARS, 

Secretary. 

June  26th,  1916. 


APPENDIX  B 


MILITARY  DESPATCHES. 


War  Office,  21st  July,  1916. 

The  following  despatches  have  been  received  by  the  Secretary 
of  State  for  War  from  the  Field-Marshal  Commanding-in-Chief , 
Home  Forces  : — 

General  Headquarters,  Home  Forces, 
Horse  Guards,  London,  S.W., 

2m  May,  1916. 

My  Lord, — I  have  the  honour  to  forward  herewith  a  report 
which  I  have  received  from  the  General  Officer  Commanding- 
in-Chief,  Irish  Command,  relating  to  the  recent  outbreak  in 
Dublin,  and  the  measures  taken  for  its  suppression. 

2.  It  will  be  observed  that  the  Rebellion  broke  out  in 
Dublin  at  12  15  p.m.  on  April  24th,  and  that  by  5  30  p.m.  on 
the  same  afternoon  a  considerable  force  from  the  Curragh  had 
arrived  In  Dublin  to  reinforce  the  garrison,  and  other  troops 
were  on  their  way  from  Athlone,  Belfast,  and  Templemore. 
The  celerity  with  which  these  reinforcements  became  available 
says  much  for  the  arrangements  which  had  been  made  to  meet 
such  a  contingency. 

3.  I  was  Informed  of  the  outbreak  by  wire  on  the  afternoon 
of  the  24th  ult.,  and  the  59th  Division  at  St.  Albans  was  at 
once  put  under  order  to  proceed  to  Ireland,  and  arrangements 
were  put  in  train  for  their  transport.  After  seeing  General 
Friend  I  gave  orders  for  the  movement  of  two  brigades  to 
commence  as  soon  as  their  transport  could  be  arranged.  I 
am  aware  that  in  doing  so  I  was  acting  beyond  the  powers 
which  were  delegated  to  me,  but  I  considered  the  situation 
to  be  bo  critical  that  it  was  necessary  to  act  at  once  without 
reference  to  the  Army  Council. 


APPENDIX  B 


249 


4.  On  the  morning  of  the  28th  April,  General  Sir  John 
Maxwell,  K.C.B.,  K.C.M.G.,  C.V.O.,  D.S.O.,  arrived  in  Ireland 
to  assume  command. 

5.  I  beg  to  bring  to  your  notice  the  assistance  afforded  to 
me  by  the  Lords  Commissioners  of  the  Admiralty,  who  met 
every  request  made  to  them  for  men,  guns,  and  transport 
with  the  greatest  promptitude,  and  whose  action  enabled  me 
to  reinforce  and  maintain  the  garrison  in  the  South  and  West 
of  Ireland  without  unduly  drawing  upon  the  troops 
which  it  was  desirable  to  retain  in  England. 

I  have  the  honour  to  be, 

Your  Lordship's  most  obedient  Servant, 

FRENCH,  Field  Marshal, 
Commanding-in-Chief,  Home  Forces. 


From  the  General  Officer, 

Commanding-in-Chief, 

The  Forces  in  Ireland, 
To  the  Field-Marshal, 

Commanding-in-Chief, 

The  Home  Forces. 

Headquarters, 

Irish  Command, 
Dublin,  25ih  May,  1916. 

My  Lord, — I  have  the  honour  to  report  the  operations  of 
the  Forces  now  under  my  command  from  Monday,  24th  April, 
when  the  rising  in  Dublin  began. 

(1)  On  Easter  Monday,  24th  April,  at  12  15  p.m.,  a  telephone 
message  was  received  from  the  Dublin  Metropolitan  Police 
saying  Dublin  Castle  was  being  attacked  by  armed  Sinn 
Feiners.  This  was  immediately  confirmed  by  the  Dublin 
Garrison  Adjutant,  who  reported  that,  in  the  absence  of 
Colonel  Kennard,  the  Garrison  Commander,  who  had  left  his 
office  shortly  before,  and  was  prevented  by  the  rebels  from 
returning,  he  had  ordered  all  available  troops  from  Portobello, 
Richmond  and  Royal  Barracks  to  proceed  to  the  Castle,  and 
the  6th  Reserve  Cavalry  Regiment  towards  Sackville  Street. 


250   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


The  fighting  strength  of  the  troops  available  in  Dublin  at 
this  moment  were  : — 

6th  Reserve  Cavalry  Regiment — 35  officers,  851  other  ranks. 
3rd  Royal  Irish  Regiment — 18  officers,  385  other  ranks. 
10th  Royal  Dublin  Fusiliers — 37  officers,  430  other  ranks. 
3rd  Royal  Irish  Rifles — 21  officers,  650  other  ranks. 

Of  these  troops  an  inlying  picquet  of  400  men,  which  for 
some  days  past  had  been  held  in  readiness,  proceeded  at  once, 
and  the  remainder  followed  shortly  afterwards. 

At  12  30  p.m.  a  telephone  message  was  sent  to  General 
Officer  Commanding,  Curragh,  to  mobilise  the  mobile  column, 
which  had  been  arranged  for  to  meet  any  emergency,  and  to 
despatch  it  dismounted  to  Dublin  by  trains  which  were 
being  sent  from  Kingsbridge. 

This  column,  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Portal,  con- 
sisted of  1,600  officers  and  other  ranks  from  the  3rd  Reserve 
Cavalry  Brigade. 

Almost  immediately  after  the  despatch  of  this  message 
telephonic  communication  in  Dublin  became  very  interrupted, 
and  from  various  sources  it  was  reported  that  the  Sinn 
Feiners  had  seized  the  General  Post  Office  in  Sackville  Street, 
the  Magazine  in  Phoenix  Park,  the  Four  Courts,  Jacobs' 
Biscuit  Factory,  and  had  occupied  many  buildings  in  various 
parts  of  the  city. 

As  the  occupation  of  the  General  Post  Office  by  the  Sinn 
Feiners  denied  the  use  of  the  telegraph  a  message  reporting 
the  situation  in  Dublin  was  sent  at  1  10  p.m.  to  the  Naval 
centre  at  Kingstown  asking  that  the  information  of  the  rising 
might  be  transmitted  by  wireless  through  the  Admiralty 
to  you.    This  was  done. 

First  Actions  of  the  Troops. 

(2)  The  first  objectives  undertaken  by  the  troops  were  to 
recover  possession  of  the  Magazine  in  Phoenix  Park,  where 
the  rebels  had  set  fire  to  a  quantity  of  ammunition,  to  relieve 
the  Castle,  and  to  strengthen  the  guards  on  Viceregal  Lodge 
and  other  points  of  importance. 

The  Magazine  was  quickly  re-occupied,  but  the  troops 
moving  on  the  Castle  were  held  up  by  the  rebels,  who  had 


APPENDIX  B 


251 


occupied  surrounding  houses,  and  had  barricaded  the  streets 
with  carts  and  other  material. 

Between  1  40  p.m.  and  2  p.m.  50  men  of  3rd  Royal  Irish 
Rifles  and  130  men  of  the  10th  Royal  Dublin  Fusiliers  reached 
the  Castle  by  the  Ship  Street  entrance. 

At  4  45  p.m.  the  first  train  from  the  Curragh  arrived  at 
Kingsbridge  Station,  and  by  5  20  p.m.  the  whole  Cavalry 
Column,  1,600  strong,  under  the  command  of  Colonel  Portal, 
had  arrived,  one  train  being  sent  on  from  Kingsbridge  to  North 
Wall  by  the  Loop  Line  to  reinforce  the  guard  over  the  Docks. 

(3)  During  the  day  the  following  troops  were  ordered  to 
Dublin  :— 

(a)  A  battery  of  four  18-pounders  R.  F.  A.,  from  the 
Reserve  Artillery  Brigade  at  Athlone. 

(6)  The  4th  Dublin  Fusiliers  from  Templemore. 

(c)  A  composite  battalion  from  Belfast. 

(d)  An  additional  1,000  men  from  the  Curragh.  This 
message  being  sent  by  one  of  the  troop  trains  returning 
to  the  Curragh. 

During  the  afternoon  and  evening  small  parties  of  troops 
were  engaged  with  the  rebels. 

The  3rd  Royal  Irish  Regiment  on  their  way  to  the  Castle 
were  held  up  by  the  rebels  in  the  South  Dublin  Union,  which 
they  attacked  and  partially  occupied  ;  a  detachment  of  two 
officers  and  fifty  men  from  the  6th  Reserve  Cavalry  Regiment, 
which  was  conveying  some  ammunition  from  the  North  Wall, 
was  surrounded  in  Charles  Street,  but  succeeded  in  parking 
their  convoy,  and  defended  this  with  great  gallantry  for 
three  and  a  half  days,  when  they  were  relieved  ;  during  this 
defence  the  officer  in  command  was  killed  and  the  remaining 
officer  wounded. 

The  rebels  in  St.  Stephen's  Green  were  attacked,  and  pic  que  ts 
with  machine  guns  were  established  in  the  United  Service 
Club  and  the  Sheibourne  Hotel  with  a  view  to  dominating  the 
Square  and  its  exits. 

At  9  35  p.m.  Colonel  Kennard,  Officer  Commanding  Troops, 
Dublin,  reached  the  Castle  with  another  party  of  eighty -six 
men  of  the  3rd  Royal  Irish  Regiment. 

The  defence  of  the  Docks  at  North  Wall  was  undertaken 
by  Major  H.  F.  Somerville,  commanding  a  detachment  from 


252    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


the  School  of  Musketry,  Dollymount,  reinforced  by  330  officers 
and  men  of  the  9th  Reserve  Cavalry  Regiment. 

The  occupation  of  the  Custom  House,  which  dominated 
Liberty  Hall,  was  carried  out  at  night,  and  was  of  great 
assistance  in  later  operations  against  Liberty  Hall. 

(4)  The  situation  at  midnight  was  that  we  held  the  Magazine, 
Phoenix  Park,  the  Castle,  and  the  Ship  Street  entrance  to  it, 
the  Royal  Hospital,  all  barracks,  the  Kingsbridge,  Amiens 
Street,  and  North  Wall  Railway  Stations,  the  Dublin  Telephone 
Exchange  in  Crown  Alley,  the  Electric  Power  Station  at 
Pigeon  House  Fort,  Trinity  College,  Mountjoy  Prison,  and 
Kingstown  Harbour.  The  Sinn  Feiners  held  Sackville  Street 
and  blocks  of  buildings  on  each  side  of  this,  including  Liberty 
Hall,  with  their  Headquarters  at  the  General  Post  Office,  the 
Four  Courts,  Jacobs'  Biscuit  Factory,  South  Dublin  Union, 
St.  Stephen's  Green,  all  the  approaches  to  the  Castle  except 
the  Ship  Street  entrance,  and  many  houses  all  over  the  city, 
especially  about  Ballsbridge  and  Beggar's  Bush. 

(5)  The  facility  with  which  the  Sinn  Feiners  were  able  to 
seize  so  many  important  points  throughout  the  city  was,  in 
my  opinion,  due  to  the  fact  that  armed  bodies  of  civilians  have 
been  continually  allowed  to  parade  in  and  march  through  the 
streets  of  Dublin  and  throughout  the  country  without  inter- 
ference. 

The  result  was  that  the  movement  of  large  forces  of  armed 
civilians,  particularly  on  a  holiday  such  as  Easter  Monday, 
passed,  if  not  unnoticed,  unchecked,  and  no  opposition  could 
be  offered  to  them  at  the  moment  when  they  decided  to  act. 

Further,  the  Dublin  police,  being  unarmed  and  powerless 
to  deal  with  these  armed  rebels,  were  withdrawn  from  the 
areas  occupied  by  them. 

(6)  At  the  time  of  the  rising  Major-General  Friend,  then 
commanding  the  troops  in  Ireland,  was  on  short  leave  in 
England,  and  when  visiting  your  headquarters  at  the  Horse 
Guards  on  that  day  heard  the  serious  news  from  Dublin. 
He  returned  that  night,  and  arrived  in  Dublin  early  on  the 
morning  of  the  25th  April. 

He  has  informed  me  that  at  a  conference  with  you  it  was 
decided  to  despatch  at  once  two  infantry  brigades  of  the 
59th  Division  from  England  to  Ireland,  and  that  the  remaining 


APPENDIX  B 


253 


Infantry  Brigade  and  Artillery  of  this  Division  were  to  be  held 
in  readiness  to  follow  if  required. 

(7)  On  April  25th,  Brigadier-General  W.  H.  M.  Lowe, 
Commanding  the  Reserve  Cavalry  Brigade  at  the  Curragh, 
arrived  at  Kingsbridge  Station  at  3  45  a.m.  with  the  leading 
troops  from  the  25th  (Irish)  Reserve  Infantry  Brigade,  and 
assumed  command  of  the  forces  in  the  Dublin  area,  which 
were  roughly  2,300  men  of  the  Dublin  Garrison,  the  Curragh 
Mobile  Column  of  1,500  dismounted  cavalrymen,  and  840  men 
of  the  25th  Reserve  Infantry  Brigade. 

(8)  In  order  to  relieve  and  get  communication  with  the 
Castle,  Colonel  Portal,  Commanding  the  Curragh  Mobile 
Column,  was  ordered  to  establish  a  line  of  posts  from  Kings- 
bridge  Station  to  Trinity  College  via  the  Castle.  This  was 
completed  by  12  noon,  25th  April,  and  with  very  little  loss. 
It  divided  the  rebel  forces  into  two,  gave  a  safe  line  of  advance 
for  troops  extending  operations  to  the  north  or  south,  and 
permitted  communication  by  despatch  rider  with  some  of  the 
Commands. 

The  only  means  of  communication  previous  to  this  had  been 
by  telephone,  which  was  unquestionably  being  tapped. 

The  Dublin  University  O.T.C.,  under  Captain  E.  H.  Alton, 
and  subsequently  Major  G.  A.  Harris,  held  the  College  buildings 
until  the  troops  arrived.  The  holding  of  these  buildings 
separated  the  rebel  centre  round  the  General  Post  Office  from 
that  round  St.  Stephen's  Green  ;  it  established  a  valuable 
base  for  the  collection  of  reinforcements  as  they  arrived,  and 
prevented  the  rebels  from  entering  the  Bank  of  Ireland,  which 
is  directly  opposite  to  and  commanded  by  the  College  buildings. 

(9)  During  the  day  the  4th  Royal  Dublin  Fusiliers  from 
Templemore,  a  composite  Ulster  Battalion  from  Belfast,  and  a 
battery  of  four  18 -pounder  guns  from  the  Reserve  Artillery 
Brigade  at  Athlone  arrived,  and  this  allowed  a  cordon  to  be 
established  round  the  northern  part  of  the  city  from  Parkgate, 
along  the  North  Circular  Road  to  North  Wall.  Broadstone 
Railway  Station  was  cleared  of  rebels,  and  a  barricade  near 
Phibsborough  was  destroyed  by  Artillery  fire. 

As  a  heavy  fire  was  being  kept  up  on  the  Castle  from  the 
rebels  located  in  the  Corporation  buildings,  Daily  Express 
offices,  and  several  houses  opposite  the  City  Hall,  it  was 
decided  to  attack  these  buildings. 


254   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


The  assault  on  the  Daily  Express  office  was  successfully 
carried  out  under  very  heavy  fire  by  a  detachment  of  the 
5th  Royal  Dublin  Fusiliers  under  2nd  Lieutenant  F.  O'Neill. 

The  main  forces  of  the  rebels  now  having  been  located  in  and 
around  Sackville  Street,  the  Four  Courts,  and  adjoining 
buildings,  it  was  decided  to  try  to  enclose  that  area  north  of 
the  Liffey  by  a  cordon  of  troops  so  as  to  localise  as  far  as 
possible  the  efforts  of  the  rebels. 

(10)  Towards  evening  the  178th  Infantry  Brigade  began  to 
arrive  at  Kingstown,  and  in  accordance  with  orders  received, 
the  brigade  left  Kingstown  by  road  in  two  columns. 

The  left  column,  consisting  of  the  5th  and  6th  Battalions 
Sherwood  Foresters,  by  the  Stillorgan-Donnybrook  Road 
and  South  Circular  Road  to  the  Royal  Hospital,  where  it 
arrived  without  opposition. 

The  right  column,  consisting  of  the  7th  and  8th  Battalions 
Sherwood  Forresters,  by  the  main  tram  route  through 
Ballsbridge,  and  directed  on  Merrion  Square  and  Trinity 
College. 

This  column,  with  7th  Battalion  leading,  was  held  up  at 
the  northern  corner  of  Haddington  Road  and  Northumberland 
Road,  which  was  strongly  held  by  rebels,  but  with  the 
assistance  of  bombing  parties  organised  and  led  by  Captain 
Jeff  ares,  of  the  Bombing  School  at  Elm  Park,  the  rebels  were 
driven  back. 

At  3.25  p.m.  the  7th  Battalion  Sherwood  Foresters  met 
great  opposition  from  the  rebels  holding  the  schools  and  other 
houses  on  the  north  side  of  the  road  close  to  the  bridge  at 
Lower  Mount  Street,  and  two  officers,  one  of  whom  was  the 
Adjutant,  Captain  Dietrichsen,  were  killed,  and  seven  wounded, 
including  Lieutenant-Colonel  Fane,  who,  though  wounded, 
remained  in  action. 

At  about  5.30  p.m.  orders  were  received  that  the  advance 
to  Trinity  College  was  to  be  pushed  forward  at  all  costs,  and 
therefore,  at  about  8  p.m.,  after  careful  arrangements,  the 
whole  column,  accompanied  by  bombing  parties,  attacked 
the  schools  and  houses  where  the  chief  opposition  lay,  the 
battalions  charging  in  successive  waves,  carried  all  before  them, 
but,  I  regret  to  say,  suffered  severe  casualties  in  doing  so. 

Four  officers  were  killed,  fourteen  wounded,  and  of  other 
ranks  216  were  killed  and  wounded. 


APPENDIX  B 


255 


The  steadiness  shown  by  these  two  battalions  is  deserving 
of  special  mention,  as  I  understand  the  majority  of  the  men 
have  less  than  three  months'  service. 

In  view  of  the  opposition  met  with,  it  was  not  considered 
advisable  to  push  on  to  Trinity  College  that  night,  so  at 
11  p.m.  the  5th  South  Staffordshire  Regiment,  from  the 
176th  Infantry  Brigade,  reinforced  this  column,  and  by 
occupying  the  positions  gained  allowed  the  two  battalions 
Sherwood  Foresters  to  be  concentrated  at  Ballsbridge. 

In  connection  with  this  fighting  at  Mount  Street  Bridge, 
where  our  heaviest  casualties  occurred,  I  should  like  to  mention 
the  gallant  assistance  given  by  a  number  of  medical  men, 
ladies,  nurses  and  women  servants,  who  at  great  risk  brought 
in  and  tended  to  the  wounded,  continuing  their  efforts  even 
when  deliberately  fired  at  by  the  rebels. 

(11)  Meanwhile  severe  fighting  had  taken  place  in  the 
Sackville  Street  quarter.  At  8  a.m.  Liberty  Hall,  the  former 
headquarters  of  the  Sinn  Feiners,  was  attacked  by  field  guns 
from  the  south  bank  of  the  River  Liffey,  and  by  a  gun  from 
the  patrol  ship  Helga,  with  the  result  that  considerable  progress 
was  made. 

During  the  night  of  26th-27th  April  several  fires  broke  out 
in  this  quarter  and  threatened  to  become  dangerous,  as  the 
fire  brigade  could  not  get  to  work  owing  to  their  being  fired 
upon  by  the  rebels. 

Throughout  the  day  further  troops  of  the  176th  Brigade 
arrived  in  the  Dublin  area. 

(12)  On  27th  April  the 

5th  Leinsters, 

2/6th  Sherwood  Foresters, 

3rd  Royal  Irish  Regiment, 

The  Ulster  Composite  Battalion, 
under  the  command  of  Colonel  Portal,  began  and  completed 
by  5  p.m.  the  forming  of  a  cordon  round  the  rebels  in  the 
Sackville  Street  area,  which  operation  was  carried  out  with 
small  loss. 

About  12.45  p.m.  Linen  Hall  Barracks,  which  were  occupied 
by  the  Army  Pay  Office,  were  reported  to  have  been  set  on 
fire  by  the  rebels,  and  were  destroyed. 

By  night-fall  the  177th  Infantry  Brigade  had  arrived  at 
Kingstown,  where  it  remained  for  the  night. 


256    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


(13)  At  2  a.m.  on  the  28th  April  I  arrived  at  North  Wall 
and  found  many  buildings  in  Sackville  Street  burning  fiercely, 
illuminating  the  whole  city,  and  a  fusilade  of  rifle  fire  going  on 
in  several  quarters  of  the  city. 

Accompanied  by  several  Staff  Officers  who  had  come  with 
me,  I  proceeded  to  tfre  Royal  Hospital. 

After  a  conference  with  Major-General  Friend  and  Brigadier- 
General  Lowe,  I  instructed  the  latter  to  close  in  on  Sackville 
Street  from  East  and  West,  and  to  carry  out  a  house  to  house 
search  in  areas  gained . 

I  was  able  to  place  the  2/4  Lincolns  at  his  disposal  for  the 
purpose  of  forming  a  cordon  along  the  Grand  Canal,  so  enclos- 
ing the  southern  part  of  the  city  and  forming  a  complete 
cordon  round  Dublin. 

During  the  afternoon  the  2/5th  and  2/6th  South  St  affords 
arrived  at  Trinity  College,  and  this  additional  force  allowed 
me  to  begin  the  task  of  placing  a  cordon  round  the  Four  Courts 
area  in  the  same  way  as  the  Sackville  Street  area,  which  had 
already  been  successfully  isolated. 

During  the  afternoon  the  2/5th  and  2/6 th  Reserve  Cavalry 
Regiment,  which  had  been  escorting  ammunition  and  rifles 
from  North  Wall,  and  had  been  held  up  in  Charles  Street,  was 
relieved  by  armoured  motor  lorries,  which  had  been  roughly 
armoured  with  boiler  plates  by  the  Inchicore  Railway  Works 
and  placed  at  my  disposal  by  Messrs.  Guinness. 

Throughout  the  night  the  process  of  driving  out  the  rebels 
in  and  around  Sackville  Street  continued,  though  these 
operations  were  greatly  hampered  by  the  fires  in  this  area 
and  by  the  fact  that  some  of  the  burning  houses  contained 
rebel  stores  of  explosives  which  every  now  and  again  blew  up. 

In  other  quarters  of  the  city  the  troops  had  a  trying  time 
dealing  with  the  numerous  snipers,  who  became  very  trouble- 
some during  the  hours  of  darkness. 

(14)  Owing  to  the  considerable  opposition  at  barricades, 
especially  in  North  King  Street,  it  was  not  until  9  a.m.  on  the 
29th  April  that  the  Four  Courts  area  was  completely 
surrounded. 

Throughout  the  morning  the  squeezing  out  of  the  sur- 
rounded areas  was  vigorously  proceeded  with,  the  infantry 
being  greatly  assisted  by  a  battery  of  Field  Artillery  com- 


APPENDIX  B 


257 


manded  by  Major  Hill,  who  used  his  guns  against  the  buildings 
held  by  the  rebels  with  such  good  effect  that  a  Red  Cross 
Nurse  brought  in  a  message  from  the  rebel  leader,  P.  H.  Pearse, 
asking  for  terms.  A  reply  was  sent  that  only  unconditional 
surrender  would  be  accepted.  At  2  p.m.  Pearse  surrendered 
himself  unconditionally,  and  was  brought  before  me,  when  he 
wrote  and  signed  notices  ordering  the  various  "  Commandoes  " 
to  surrender  unconditionally. 

During  the  evening  the  greater  part  of  the  rebels  in  the 
Sackville  Street  and  Four  Courts  area  surrendered. 

(15)  Early  on  the  30th  April  two  Franciscan  Monks  informed 
me  that  the  rebel  leader,  Macdonagh,  declining  to  accept 
Pearse's  orders,  wished  to  negotiate. 

He  was  informed  that  only  unconditional  surrender  would 
be  accepted,  and  at  3  p.m.,  when  all  preparation  for  an  attack 
on  Jacobs'  Biscuit  Factory,  which  he  held,  had  been  made, 
Macdonagh  and  his  band  of  rebels  surrendered  unconditionally. 

In  the  St.  Stephen's  Green  area,  Countess  Marcievicz  and 
her  band  surrendered  and  were  taken  to  the  Castle. 

These  surrenders  practically  ended  the  rebellion  in  the  city 
of  Dublin. 

(16)  Throughout  the  night  of  the  30th  April/lst  May 
isolated  rebels  continued  to  snipe  the  troops,  but  during  the 
1st  May  these  were  gradually  cleared  out,  and  in  conjunction 
with  the  police  a  systematic  house-to-house  search  for  rebels 
and  arms  was  continued 

(17)  During  the  severe  righting  which  took  place  in  Dublin 
the  greatest  anxiety  was  caused  by  the  disquieting  reports 
received  from  many  parts  of  Ireland,  and  chiefly  from — 

(a)  County  Dublin. 

(b)  County  Meath. 

(c)  County  Louth 

(d)  County  Galway. 

(e)  County  Wexford. 
(/)  County  Clare. 

{g)  County  Kerry. 

(18)  On  the  27th  April,  as  soon  as  the  troops  became  avail- 
able, a  detachment  was  sent  by  sea  from  Kingstown  to  Arklow 
to  reinforce  the  garrison  at  Kynoch's  Explosive  Works,  and 
a  small  party  was  sent  to  assist  the  R.  I.  C.  post  over  the 
wireless  station  at  Skerries. 

R 


258    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


On  the  28th  April  a  battalion  of  the  Sherwood  Foresters 
were  despatched  by  rail  to  Athlone  to  protect  the  Artillery  and 
Military  Stores  there,  and  to  hold  the  communication  over 
the  River  Shannon. 

(19)  Brigadier-General  Stafford,  the  Garrison  Commander 
at  Queenstown,  was  directed  to  use  his  discretion  in  the 
employment  of  troops  under  his  command,  and  on  30th  April 
he  was  reinforced  from  England  by  one  battalion  of  the  179th 
Brigade,  60th  Division,  a  battalion  of  the  Royal  Marines,  and 
later  by  the  remainder  of  the  179th  Brigade. 

(20)  Brigadier-General  Hackett-Pain,  who  assumed  com- 
mand of  the  troops  in  Ulster,  made  effective  use  of  the  troops 
under  his  command,  and  it  was  largely  due  to  the  dispositions 
made  by  these  two  Commanders  that  the  Sinn  Feiners  in  the 
South  and  North  of  Ireland  were  restrained  from  taking  a 
more  active  part  in  the  rebellion. 

I  received  the  greatest  assistance  from  the  Inspector- 
General  Royal  Irish  Constabulary  and  from  all  his  inspectors 
and  men,  and  throughout  the  rebellion  I  worked  in  the  closest 
co-operation  with  them.  In  many  districts  small  posts  of 
these  gallant  men  were  isolated  and  had  to  defend  themselves 
against  overwhelming  numbers,  which  they  successfully  did 
except  in  very  few  cases. 

It  was  with  great  regret  I  received  the  report  of  28th  April 
that  a  body  of  Royal  Irish  Constabulary,  under  Inspector 
Gray,  had  been  ambushed  by  the  rebels  at  Ashbourne,  which 
resulted  in  Inspectors  Gray  and  Smith  and  eight  constables 
being  killed  and  14  wounded. 

It  was  not  until  30th  April  that  I  was  able  to  spare  a  mobile 
column  to  deal  with  this  body  of  rebels,  the  leaders  of  which 
were  secured. 

In  other  parts  of  Ireland  similar  attacks  on  police  posts  had 
been  made  by  armed  bands  of  Sinn  Feiners.  In  order  to  deal 
with  these,  as  soon  as  the  Dublin  rebels  had  been  crushed,  I 
organised  various  mobile  columns,  each  consisting  of  from  one 
to  two  companies  of  infantry,  a  squadron  of  cavalry,  one 
18-pounder  gun  and  an  armoured  car. 

Each  column  was  allotted  a  definite  area,  which,  in  close 
co-operation  with  the  local  police,  was  gone  through,  and 
dangerous  Sinn  Feiners  and  men  who  were  known  to  have 


APPENDIX  B 


259 


taken  an  active  part  in  the  rising  were  arrested  ;  in  addition 
many  arms  belonging  to  Sinn  Feiners  were  surrendered  or 
seized. 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  report  that  the  presence  of  these 
columns  had  the  best  possible  effect  on  the  people  in  countr}' 
districts,  in  many  of  which  troops  had  not  been  seen  for  years. 

(22)  That  splendid  body  of  men,  the  Dublin  Metropolitan 
Police,  could  give  me  little  or  no  assistance,  because  they  were 
unarmed.  Had  they  been  armed  I  doubt  if  the  rising  in 
Dublin  would  have  had  the  success  it  did. 

(23)  I  am  glad  to  report  that  the  conduct  of  the  troops  was 
admirable  ;  their  cheerfulness,  courage,  and  good  discipline, 
under  the  most  trying  conditions,  was  excellent. 

Although  doors  and  windows  of  shops  and  houses  had  to 
be  broken  open,  no  genuine  case  of  looting  has  been  reported 
to  me,  which  I  consider  reflects  the  greatest  credit  on  all  ranks. 

(24)  I  wish  to  acknowledge  the  great  assistance  I  received 
from  the  Provost  of  Trinity  College  ;  the  clergy  of  all  de- 
nominations ;  civilian  medical  men  ;  Red  Cross  nurses,  who 
were  untiring  in  their  attention  do  the  wounded,  often  rendered 
under  heavy  fire  ;  ambulances  provided  by  Royal  Ambulance 
Corps  ;  the  Irish  Volunteer  Training  Corps  and  the  members 
of  St.  John  Ambulance  Corps  ;  the  Civilian  and  Officers' 
Training  Corps  motor  cyclists,  who  fearlessly  carried  despatches 
through  streets  infested  with  snipers  ;  telegraph  operators  and 
engineers  ;  and  from  the  lady  operators  of  the  Telephone 
Exchange,  to  whose  efforts  the  only  means  of  rapid  communi- 
cation remained  available. 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  record  my  opinion  that  the  feelings 
of  the  bulk  of  the  citizens  of  Dublin  being  against  the  Sinn 
Feiners  materially  influenced  the  collapse  of  the  rebellion. 

(25)  I  deplore  the  serious  losses  which  the  troops  and  the 
civilian  volunteers  have  suffered  during  these  very  disagree- 
able operations. 

I  have  the  honour  to  be, 

Your  most  obedient  servant, 


J.  G.  MAXWELL, 

General. 


260    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


From  the  General  Officer  Commanding-in-Chief,  the  Forces 
in  Ireland,  to  the  Secretary  of  State  for  War. 

Headquarters,  Irish  Command, 

Dublin,  26th  May,  1916. 

My  Lord, — In  amplification  of  the  report  of  the  operations 
undertaken  by  the  troops  in  Dublin,  which  I  forwarded  to 
Field-Marshal  Lord  French  on  25th  May,  I  think  it  desirable 
to  bring  to  your  notice  the  difficult  conditions  under  which 
the  troops  had  to  act. 

(1)  The  rebellion  began  by  Sinn  Feiners,  presumably  acting 
under  orders,  shooting  in  cold  blood  certain  soldiers  and  police- 
men ;  simultaneously  they  took  possession  of  various  impor- 
tant buildings  and  occupied  houses  along  the  routes  into  the 
City  of  Dublin  which  were  likely  to  be  used  by  troops  taking 
up  posts. 

(2)  Most  of  the  rebels  were  not  in  any  uniform,  and  by 
mixing  with  peaceful  citizens  made  it  almost  impossible  for 
the  troops  to  distinguish  between  friend  and  foe  until  fire 
was  opened. 

(3)  In  many  cases  troops  having  passed  along  a  street 
seemingly  occupied  by  harmless  people  were  suddenly  fired 
upon  from  behind  from  windows  and  roof-tops.  Such  were 
the  conditions  when  reinforcements  commenced  to  arrive  in 
Dublin. 

(4)  Whilst  fighting  continued  under  conditions  at  once  so 
confused  and  so  trying,  it  is  possible  that  some  innocent 
citizens  were  shot.  It  must  be  remembered  that  the  struggle 
was  in  many  cases  of  a  house-to-house  character,  that  sniping 
was  continuous  and  very  persistent,  and  that  it  was  often 
extremely  difficult  to  distinguish  between  those  who  were  or 
had  been  firing  upon  the  troops  and  those  who  had  for  various 
reasons  chosen  to  remain  on  the  scene  of  the  fighting,  instead 
of  leaving  the  houses  and  passing  through  the  cordons. 

(5)  The  number  of  such  incidents  that  has  been  brought  to 
notice  is  very  insignificant. 

(6)  Once  the  rebellion  started  the  members  of  the  Dublin 
Metropolitan  Police — an  unarmed  uniformed  force — had  to  be 
withdrawn,  or  they  would  have  been  mercilessly  shot  down, 
as,  indeed,  were  all  who  had  the  bad  luck  to  meet  the  rebels. 
In  their  absence  a  number  of  the  worst  elements  of  the  city 


APPENDIX  B 


261 


joined  the  rebels  and  were  armed  by  them.  The  daily  record 
of  the  Dublin  Magistrates'  Court  proves  that  such  looting  as 
there  was  was  done  by  such  elements. 

(7)  There  have  been  numerous  incidents  of  deliberate 
shooting  on  ambulances,  and  those  courageous  people  who 
voluntarily  came  out  to  tend  to  the  wounded.  The  City  Fire 
Brigade,  when  turned  out  in  consequence  of  incendiary  fires, 
were  fired  on  and  had  to  retire. 

(8)  As  soon  as  it  was  ascertained  that  the  rebels  had  estab- 
lished themselves  in  various  centres,  the  first  phase  of  opera- 
tions was  conducted  with  a  view  to  isolate  them  by  forming 
a  cordon  of  troops  around  each. 

(9)  To  carry  out  this  streets  were  selected,  along  which  the 
cordon  could  be  drawn.  Some  of  these  streets — for  instance, 
North  King  Street— were  found  to  be  strongly  held,  rebels 
occupying  the  roofs  of  houses,  upper  windows,  and  strongly- 
constructed  barricades. 

(10)  Artillery  fire  was  only  used  to  reduce  the  barricades,  or 
against  a  particular  house  known  to  be  strongly  held. 

(11)  The  troops  suffered  severe  losses  in  estabhshing  these 
cordons,  and,  once  established,  the  troops  were  subjected  to 
a  continuous  fire  from  all  directions,  especially  at  night  time, 
and  invariably  from  persons  concealed  in  houses. 

(12)  To  give  an  idea  of  the  opposition  offered  to  His 
Majesty's  troops  in  the  execution  of  their  duty,  the  following 
losses  occurred  : — 

Killed  Wounded 
Ofiicers       ...  ...       17  46 

Other  ranks  ...       89  288 

(13)  I  wish  to  draw  attention  to  the  fact  that,  when  it 
became  known  that  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion  wished  to 
surrender,  the  ofiicers  used  every  endeavour  to  prevent  further 
bloodshed  ;  emissaries  were  sent  in  to  the  various  isolated 
bands,  and  time  was  given  them  to  consider  their  position. 

(14)  I  cannot  imagine  a  more  difficult  situation  than  that 
in  which  the  troops  were  placed  ;  most  of  those  employed  were 
draft-finding  battalions  or  young  Territorials  from  England, 
who  had  no  knowledge  of  Dublin. 

(15)  The  surrenders,  which  began  on  April  30th,  were  con- 
tinued until  late  on  May  1st,  during  which  time  there  was  a 
considerable  amount  of  isolated  sniping. 


262    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


(16)  Under  the  circumstances  related  above,  I  consider  the 
troops  as  a  whole  behaved  with  the  greatest  restraint,  and 
carried  out  their  disagreeable  and  distasteful  duties  in  a 
manner  which  reflects  the  greatest  credit  on  their  discipline. 

(17)  Allegations  on  the  behaviour  of  the  troops  brought  to 
my  notice  are  being  most  carefully  inquired  into.  I  am  glad 
to  say  they  are  few  in  number,  and  these  are  not  all  borne  out 
by  direct  evidence. 

(18)  Numerous  cases  of  unarmed  persons  killed  by  rebels 
during  the  outbreak  have  been  reported  to  me.  As  instances, 
I  may  select  the  following  for  your  information  : — 

J.  Brien,  a  constable  of  the  Dublin  Metropolitan  Police,  was 
shot  while  on  duty  at  Castle  Gate  on  April  24th.  On  the 
same  day  another  constable  of  the  same  force,  named 
M.  Lahiff,  was  shot  while  on  duty  at  St.  Stephen's  Green. 
On  April  25th  R.  Waters,  of  Recess,  Monkstown,  Co. 
Dublin,  was  shot  at  Mount  Street  Bridge,  while  being 
driven  into  Dublin  by  Captain  Scovell,  R.A.M.C. 

All  these  were  unarmed,  as  was  Captain  Scovell.  In  the  last 
case,  the  car  was  not  challenged  or  asked  to  stop. 

(19)  I  wish  to  emphasise  that  the  responsibility  for  the  loss 
of  life,  however  it  occurred,  the  destruction  of  property,  and 
other  losses,  rests  entirely  with  those  who  engineered  this 
revolt,  and  who,  at  a  time  when  the  Empire  is  engaged  in  a 
gigantic  struggle,  invited  the  assistance  and  co-operation  of 
the  Germans. 

I  have  the  honour  to  be,  my  Lord, 

Your  obedient  Servant, 

(Signed)      J.  G.  MAXWELL, 

General. 


APPENDIX  C. 


CASEMENTS  SPEECH  FROM  THE  DOCK. 


[Casement  was  placed  upon  his  trial  for  high  treason  M  with- 
out the  Realm  of  England.''1  the  charge  being  founded  on  a  statute 
of  King  Edward  HI.,  before  the  High  Court  of  J ustice  in  London 
on  June  26th.  He  was  found  guilty  on  June  29th,  and,  on 
being  asked  if  he  had  anything  to  say  why  sentence  of  death 
should  not  be  passed  upon  him  according  to  law,  read  the  following 
statement.] 

My  Lord  Chief  Justice, — As  I  wish  my  words  to  reach  a 
much  wider  audience  than  I  see  before  me  here,  I  intend  to 
read  all  that  I  propose  to  say.  What  I  shall  read  now  is 
something  I  wrote  more  than  20  days  ago.  There  is  an 
objection,  possibly  not  good  in  law,  but  surely  good  on  moral 
grounds,  against  the  application  to  me  here  of  this  old  English 
statute,  565  years  old,  that  seeks  to  deprive  an  Irishman 
to-day  of  life  and  honour,  not  for  "  adhering  to  the  King's 
enemies,"  but  for  adhering  to  his  own  people. 

When  this  statute  was  passed  in  1351,  what  was  the  state 
of  men's  minds  on  the  question  of  a  far  higher  allegiance — 
that  of  man  to  God  and  His  K  ngdom  ?  The  law  of  that  day 
did  not  permit  a  man  to  forsake  his  Church  or  deny  his  God 
save  with  his  life.  The  "  hereiic  "  then  had  the  same  doom 
as  the  "  traitor."  To-day  a  man  may  forswear  God  and  His 
heavenly  realm  without  fear  or  penalty,  all  earlier  statutes 
having  gone  the  way  of  Nero's  edicts  against  the  Christians  ; 
but  that  Constitutional  phantom,  "  The  Kong,"  can  still  dig 
up  from  the  dungeons  and  torture-chambers  of  the  Dark  Ages 
a  law  that  takes  a  man's  life  and  limb  for  an  exercise  of 
conscience. 

If  true  religion  rests  on  love,  it  is  equally  true  that  loyalty 


264   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


rests  on  love.  The  law  I  am  charged  under  has  no  parentage 
in  love  and  claims  the  allegiance  of  to-day  on  the  ignorance 
and  blindness  of  the  past.  I  am  being  tried  in  truth  not  by 
my  peers  of  the  live  present,  but  by  the  fears  of  the  dead  past  ; 
not  by  the  civilisation  of  the  20th  century,  but  by  the  brutality 
of  the  14th  ;  not  even  by  a  statute  framed  in  the  language  of 
the  land  that  tries  me,  but  emitted  in  the  language  of  an  enemy 
land,  so  antiquated  is  the  law  that  must  be  sought  to-daj^ 
to  slay  an  Irishman  whose  offence  is  that  he  puts  Ireland  first ! 

Loyalty  is  a  sentiment,  not  a  law.  It  rests  on  love,  not  on 
restraint.  The  government  of  Ireland  by  England  rests  on 
restraint  and  not  on  law  ;  and  since  it  demands  no  love  it  can 
evoke  no  loyalty. 

But  this  statute  is  more  absurd  even  than  it  is  antiquated  ; 
and  if  it  be  potent  to  hang  one  Irishman,  it  is  still  more  potent 
to  gibbet  all  Englishmen.  Edward  III.  was  King  not  only  of 
the  Realm  of  England,  but  also  of  the  Realm  of  France,  and 
he  was  not  King  of  Ireland  Yet  his  dead  hand  to-day  may 
pull  the  noose  around  the  Irishman's  neck  whose  Sovereign 
he  was  not,  but  it  can  strain  no  strand  around  the  Frenchman's 
throat  whose  Sovereign  he  was.  For  centuries  the  successors 
of  Edward  III.  claimed  to  be  Kings  of  France,  and  quartered 
the  arms  of  France  on  their  Royal  shield  down  to  the  Union 
with  Ireland  on  January  1,  1801.  Throughout  these  hundreds 
of  years  these  "  Kings  of  France  "  were  constantly  at  war 
with  their  Realm  of  France  and  their  French  subjects,  who 
should  have  gone  from  birth  to  death  with  an  obvious  fear  of 
treason  before  their  eyes.  But  did  they  ?  Did  the  "  Kings 
of  France resident  here  at  Windsor,  or  in  the  Tower  of 
London,  hang,  draw,  and  quarter  as  a  traitor  every  Frenchman 
for  400  years  who  fell  into  their  hands  with  arms  in  his  hands  ? 
On  the  contrary,  they  received  Embassies  of  these  traitors, 
presents  from  these  traitors,  even  knighthood  itself  at  the 
hands  of  these  traitors,  feasted  with  them,  tilted  with  them, 
fought  with  them — but  did  not  assassinate  them  by  law. 

Judicial  assassination  to-day  is  reserved  only  for  one  race 
of  the  King's  subjects  ;  for  Irishmen  ;  for  those  who  cannot 
forget  their  allegiance  to  the  Realm  of  Ireland.  The  Kings  of 
England,  as  such,  had  no  rights  in  Ireland  up  to  the  time  of 
Henry  VIII.,  save  such  as  rested  on  compact  and  mutual 


APPENDIX  C 


265 


obligation  entered  into  between  them  and  certain  princes, 
chiefs,  and  lords  of  Ireland.  This  form  of  legal  right,  such  as 
it  was,  gave  no  King  of  England  lawful  power  to  impeach  an 
Irishman  for  high  treason  under  this  statute  of  King  Edward 
III.  of  England  until  an  Irish  Act,  known  as  Poyning's  Law, 
the  10th  of  Henry  VII.,  was  passed  in  1494,  at  Drogheda,  by 
the  Parliament  of  the  Pale  in  Ireland,  and  enacted  as  law  in 
that  part  of  Ireland.  But  if  by  Poyning's  Law  an  Irishman 
of  the  Pale  could  be  indicted  for  high  treason  under  this  Act, 
he  could  be  indicted  only  in  one  way  and  before  one  tribunal — 
by  the  laws  of  the  Realm  of  Ireland  and  in  Ireland.  The  very 
law  of  Poyning,  which,  I  believe,  applies  this  statute  of 
Edward  III.  to  Ireland,  enacted  also  for  the  Irishman's 
defence,  "  all  those  laws  by  which  England  claims  her  liberty." 

And  what  is  the  fundamental  charter  of  an  Englishman's 
liberty  ?  That  he  shall  be  tried  by  his  peers.  With  all  respect 
I  assert  this  Court  is  to  me,  an  Irishman,  charged  with  this 
offence,  a  foreign  Court — this  jury  is  for  me,  an  Irishman,  not 
a  jury  of  my  peers  to  try  me  in  this  vital  issue,  for  it  is  patent 
to  every  man  of  conscience  that  I  have  a  right,  an  indefeasible 
right,  if  tried  at  all  under  this  statute  of  high  treason,  to  be 
tried  in  Ireland,  before  an  Irish  Court  and  by  an  Irish  jury. 
This  Court,  this  jury,  the  public  opinion  of  this  country, 
England,  cannot  but  be  prejudiced  in  varying  degrees  against 
me,  most  of  all  in  time  of  war.  I  did  not  land  in  England.  I 
landed  in  Ireland.  It  was  to  Ireland  I  came  ;  to  Ireland  I 
wanted  to  come,  and  the  last  place  I  desired  to  land  in  was 
England. 

But  for  the  Attorney-General  of  England  there  is  only 
"  England  " — there  is  no  Ireland,  there  is  only  the  law  of 
England — no  right  of  Ireland  ;  the  liberty  of  Ireland  and  of 
Irishmen  is  to  be  judged  by  the  power  of  England.  Yet  for 
me,  the  Irish  outlaw,  there  is  a  land  of  Ireland,  a  right  of 
Ireland,  and  a  charter  for  all  Irishmen  to  appeal  to,  in  the  last 
resort,  a  charter  that  even  the  very  statutes  of  England  itself 
cannot  deprive  us  of,  nay  more,  a  charter  that  Englishmen 
themselves  assert  as  the  fundamental  bond  of  law  that  con- 
nects the  two  kingdoms.  This  charge  of  high  treason  involves 
a  moral  responsibility,  as  the  very  terms  of  the  indictment 
against  myself  recite,  inasmuch  as  I  committed  the  acts  I  am 


266    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


charged  with  to  the  "  evil  example  of  others  in  the  like  case." 
What  was  this  "  evil  example  "  I  set  to  others  in  "  the  like 
case,"  and  who  were  these  others  ?  The  "  evil  example  99 
charge  is  that  I  asserted  the  rights  of  my  own  country,  and 
the  "  others  "  I  appealed  to,  to  aid  my  endeavour,  were  my 
own  countrymen.  The  example  was  given  not  to  Englishmen, 
but  to  Irishmen,  and  the  "  like  case  "  can  never  arise  in 
England,  but  only  in  Ireland.  To  Englishmen  I  set  no  evil 
example,  for  I  made  no  appeal  to  them.  I  asked  no  English- 
man to  help  me.  I  asked  Irishmen  to  fight  for  their  rights. 
The  "  evil  example  "  was  only  to  other  Irishmen  who  might 
come  after  me  and  in  "  like  case  "  seek  to  do  as  I  did.  How, 
then,  since  neither  my  example  nor  my  appeal  was  addressed 
to  Englishmen,  can  I  be  righfully  tried  by  them  ? 

If  I  did  wrong  in  making  that  appeal  to  Irishmen  to  join 
with  me  in  an  effort  to  fight  for  Ireland,  it  is  by  Irishmen  and 
by  them  alone  I  can  be  rightfully  judged.  From  this  Court 
and  its  jurisdiction  I  appeal  to  those  I  am  alleged  to  have 
wronged,  and  to  those  I  am  alleged  to  have  injured  by  my 
"  evil  example,"  and  claim  that  they  alone  are  competent  to 
decide  my  guilt  or  my  innocence.  If  they  find  me  guilty  the 
statute  may  affix  the  penalty,  but  the  statute  does  not  over- 
ride or  annul  my  right  to  seek  judgment  at  their  hands.  This 
is  so  fundamental  a  right,  so  natural  a  right,  so  obvious  a 
right,  that  it  is  clear  the  Crown  were  aware  of  it  when  they 
brought  me  by  force  and  by  stealth  from  Ireland  to  this 
country.  It  was  not  I  who  landed  in  England,  but  the  Crown 
who  dragged  me  here,  away  from  my  own  country  to  which  I 
had  returned  with  a  price  upon  my  head,  away  from  my  own 
countrymen  whose  loyalty  is  not  in  doubt,  and  safe  from  the 
judgment  of  my  peers  whose  judgment  I  do  not  shrink  from. 
I  admit  no  other  judgment  but  theirs.  I  accept  no  verdict 
save  at  their  hands. 

I  assert  from  this  dock  that  I  am  being  tried  here  not  because 
it  is  just,  but  because  it  is  unjust.  Place  me  before  a  jury  of 
my  own  countrymen,  be  it  Protestant  or  Catholic,  Unionist  or 
Nationalist,  Sinn  Feineach  or  Orangemen,  and  I  shall  accept 
the  verdict  and  bow  to  the  statute  and  all  its  penalties.  But 
I  shall  accept  no  meaner  finding  against  me  than  that  of  those 
whose  loyalty  I  endangered  by  my  example  and  to  whom 


APPENDIX  C 


267 


alone  I  made  appeal.  If  they  adjudge  me  guilty,  then  guilty 
I  am.  It  is  not  I  who  am  afraid  of  their  verdict — it  is  the 
Crown.  If  this  be  not  so,  why  fear  the  test  ?  I  fear  it  not. 
I  demand  it  as  my  right. 

That  is  the  condemnation  of  English  rule,  of  English -made 
law,  of  English  government  in  Ireland,  that  it  dare  not  rest 
on  the  will  of  the  Irish  people,  but  exists  in  defiance  of  their 
will — that  it  is  a  rule  derived  not  from  right  but  from  conquest. 

Conquest,  my  lord,  gives  no  title — and  if  it  exists  over  the 
body  it  fails  over  the  mind.  It  can  exert  no  empire  over  men's 
reason  and  judgment  and  affections  ;  and  it  is  from  this  law 
of  conquest  without  title,  to  the  reason,  judgment,  and 
affection  of  my  own  countrymen,  that  I  appeal. 

I  would  add,  the  generous  expressions  of  sympathy  extended 
to  me  from  so  many  quarters,  particularly  from  America, 
have  touched  me  very  much.  In  that  country,  as  in  my  own, 
I  am  sure  my  motives  are  understood,  for  the  achievement  of 
their  liberties  has  been  an  abiding  inspiration  to  Irishmen  and 
to  all  elsewhere  rightly  struggling  to  be  free. 

My  Lord  Chief  Justice,  I  am  not  called  upon,  I  conceive,  to 
say  anything  in  answer  to  the  inquiry  your  lordship  has  ad- 
dressed to  me  why  sentence  should  not  be  passed  upon  me. 
Since  I  do  not  admit  any  verdict  in  this  Court  I  cannot,  my 
lord,  a  mit  the  fitness  of  the  sentence  that  of  necessity  must 
follow  it  from  this  Court.  I  hope  I  shall  be  acquitted  of  pre- 
sumption if  I  say  that  the  Court  I  see  before  me  now  is  not 
this  High  Court  of  Justice  of  England,  but  a  far  greater,  a 
far  higher,  a  far  older  assemblage  of  justices — that  of  the 
people  of  Ireland.  Since  in  the  acts  which  have  led  to  this 
trial  it  was  the  people  of  Ireland  I  sought  to  serve  and  them 
alone — I  leave  my  judgment  and  my  sentence  in  their  hands. 

Let  me  pass  from  myself  and  my  own  fate  to  a  far  more 
pressing,  as  it  is  a  far  more  urgent,  theme — not  the  fate  of  the 
individual  Irishman  who  may  have  tried  and  failed,  but  the 
claims  and  the  fate  of  the  country  that  has  not  failed.  Ireland 
has  outlived  the  failure  of  all  her  hopes — and  yet  she  still 
hopes.  Ireland  has  seen  her  sons — aye,  and  her  daughters, 
too — suffer  from  generation  to  generation  always  for  the  same 
cause,  meeting  always  the  same  fate,  and  always  at  the  hands 
of  the  same  power  ;  and  always  a  fresh  generation  has  passed 


268    THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


on  to  withstand  the  same  oppression.  For  if  English  authority 
be  omnipotent — a  power,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  phrased  it,  that 
reaches  to  the  very  ends  of  the  earth — Irish  hope  exceeds  the 
dimensions  of  that  power,  excels  its  authority,  and  renews  with 
each  generation  the  claims  of  the  last.  The  cause  that  begets 
this  indomitable  persistency,  the  faculty  of  preserving  through 
centuries  of  misery  the  remembrance  of  lost  liberty,  this 
surely  is  the  noblest  cause  men  ever  strove  for,  ever  lived  for, 
ever  died  for.  If  this  be  the  case  I  stand  here  to-day  indicted 
for  and  convicted  of  sustaining,  then  I  stand  in  a  goodly 
company  and  a  right  noble  succession. 

My  counsel  has  referred  to  the  Ulster  Volunteer  movement, 
and  I  will  not  touch  at  length  upon  that  ground,  save  only  to 
say  this,  that  neither  I  nor  any  of  the  leaders  of  the  Irish 
Volunteers,  who  were  founded  in  Dublin  in  November  1913, 
had  any  quarrel  with  the  Ulster  Volunteers  as  such,  who  were 
born  a  year  earlier.  Our  movement  was  not  directed  against 
them,  but  against  the  men  who  misused  and  misdirected  the 
courage,  the  sincerity,  and  the  local  patriotism  of  the  men  of 
the  North  of  Ireland.  The  manifesto  of  the  Irish  Volunteers, 
promulgated  at  a  public  meeting  in  Dublin  on  November  25, 
1913,  stated  with  sincerity  the  aims  of  the  organisation  as  I 
have  outlined  them. 

Since  arms  were  so  necessary  to  make  our  organisation  a 
reality  and  to  give  to  the  minds  of  Irishmen  menaced  with  the 
most  outrageous  threats  a  sense  of  security,  it  was  our  bounden 
duty  to  get  arms  before  all  else.  I  decided,  with  this  end  in 
view,  to  go  to  America,  with  surely  a  better  right  to  appeal 
to  Irishmen  there  for  help  in  an  hour  of  great  national  trial 
than  those  envoys  of  "  Empire  "  could  assert  for  their  week- 
end descents  upon  Ireland,  or  their  appeals  to  Germany. 

If,  as  the  right  hon.  gentleman,  the  present  Attorney- 
General,  asserted  in  a  speech  at  Manchester,  Nationalists 
would  neither  fight  for  Home  Rule  nor  pay  for  it,  it  was  our 
duty  to  show  him  that  we  knew  how  to  do  both.  Within  a 
few  weeks  of  my  arrival  in  the  States  the  fund  that  had  been 
opened  to  secure  arms  for  the  Volunteers  of  Ireland  amounted 
to  many  thousands  of  pounds.  In  every  case  the  money 
subscribed,  whether  it  came  from  the  purse  of  the  wealthy 
man  or  the  still  readier  pocket  of  the  poor  man,  was  Irish  gold. 


APPENDIX  C 


269 


Then  came  the  war.  As  Mr.  Birrell  said  in  his  evidence 
recently  laid  before  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  into  the  causes 
of  the  late  rebellion  in  Ireland,  "  the  war  upset  all  our  calcu- 
lations." It  upset  mine  no  less  than  Mr.  Birrell's,  and  put  an 
end  to  my  mission  of  peaceful  effort  in  America.  War  between 
Great  Britain  and  Germany  meant,  as  I  believed,  ruin  for  all 
the  hopes  we  had  founded  on  the  enrolment  of  the  Irish 
Volunteers.  A  constitutional  movement  in  Ireland  is  never 
very  far  from  a  breach  of  the  Constitution,  as  the  loyalists  of 
Ulster  had  been  so  eager  to  show  us. 

The  difference  between  us  was  that  the  Unionist  champions 
chose  a  path  they  felt  would  lead  to  the  Woolsack,  while  I 
went  a  road  I  knew  must  lead  to  the  dock.  And  the  event 
proves  we  were  both  right.  The  difference  between  us  was 
that  my  "  treason  "  was  based  on  a  ruthless  sincerity  that 
forced  me  to  attempt  in  time  and  season  to  carry  out  in  action 
what  I  said  in  words — whereas  their  treason  lay  in  verbal 
incitements  that  they  knew  need  never  be  made  good  in  their 
bodies.  And  so,  I  am  prouder  to  stand  here  to-day  in  the 
traitor's  dock  to  answer  this  impeachment  than  to  fill  the  place 
of  my  right  honourable  accusers. 

We  have  been  told,  we  have  been  asked  to  hope  that  after 
this  war  Ireland  will  get  Home  Rule  as  a  reward  for  the  life- 
blood  shed  in  a  cause  whoever  else  its  success  may  benefit, 
can  surely  not  benefit  Ireland.  And  what  will  Home  Rule 
be  in  return  for  what  its  vague  promise  has  taken,  and  still 
hopes  to  take,  away  from  Ireland  ?  Home  Rule  when  it  comes, 
if  come  it  does,  will  find  an  Ireland  drained  of  all  that  is  vital 
to  its  very  existence — unless  it  be  that  unquenchable  hope  we 
build  on  the  graves  of  the  dead.  We  are  told  that  if  Irishmen 
go  by  the  thousand  to  die  not  for  Ireland,  but  for  Flanders, 
for  Belgium,  for  a  patch  of  sand  on  the  deserts  of  Mesopotamia, 
or  a  rocky  trench  on  the  heights  of  Gallipoli,  they  are  winning 
self-government  for  Ireland.  But  if  they  dare  to  lay  down 
their  fives  on  their  native  soil,  if  they  dare  to  dream  even  that 
freedom  can  be  won  only  at  home  by  men  resolved  to  fight 
for  it  there,  then  they  are  traitors  to  their  country,  and  their 
dream  and  their  deaths  alike  are  phases  of  a  dishonourable 
fantasy. 

But  history  is  not  so  recorded  in  other  lands.    In  Ireland 


370   THE  IRISH  REBELLION  OF  1916 


alone  in  this  20th  century  is  loyalty  held  to  be  a  crime.  If 
loyalty  be  something  less  than  love  and  more  than  law,  then 
we  have  had  enough  of  such  loyalty  for  Ireland  or  Irishmen. 
Where  all  your  rights  become  only  an  accumulated  wrong  ; 
where  men  must  beg  with  bated  breath  for  leave  to  subsist  in 
their  own  land,  to  think  their  own  thoughts,  to  sing  their  own 
songs,  to  garner  the  fruit  of  their  own  labours — and  even 
while  they  beg  to  see  these  things  inexorably  withdrawn  from 
them — then  surely  it  is  a  braver,  a  saner,  and  a  truer  thing 
to  be  a  rebel  in  act  and  deed  against  such  circumstances  as  this 
than  tamely  to  accept  it  as  the  natural  lot  of  men. 

The  prisoner,  at  the  conclusion  of  his  statement,  addressing 
ihe  jury,  said  that  he  wished  to  thank  them  for  their  verdict, 
and  that  his  observations  did  not  in  any  way  reflect  on  their 
integrity.  He  maintained  that  he  had  a  right  to  be  tried 
in  Ireland,  and  he  asked  them  how  any  one  of  them  would 
feel  in  a  converse  case  if  he  had  landed  in  England  and  had 
been  carried  over  to  Ireland  by  stealth  and  under  a  false  name 
to  be  tried  in  a  country  inflamed  against  him  and  believing 
him  to  be  a  criminal. 


After  Casement's  execution  on  August  3rd,  the  following 
statement  was  issued  by  the  Government  through  the  Press 
Bureau  : — 

All  the  circumstances  in  the  case  of  Roger  Casement  were 
carefully  and  repeatedly  considered  by  the  Government  before 
the  decision  was  reached  not  to  interfere  with  the  sentence  of 
the  law.  He  was  convicted  and  punished  for  treachery  of  the 
worst  kind  to  the  Empire  he  had  served,  and  as  a  willing  agent 
of  Germany. 

The  Irish  rebellion  resulted  in  much  loss  of  life,  both  among 
soldiers  and  civilians.  Casement  invoked  and  organised 
German  assistance  to  the  insurrection.  In  addition,  though 
himself  for  many  years  a  British  official,  he  undertook  the  task 
of  trying  to  induce  soldiers  of  the  British  Army,  prisoners  in 
the  hands  of  Germany,  to  foreswear  their  oaths  of  allegiance 
and  join  their  country's  enemies. 

Conclusive  evidence  has  come  into  the  hands  of  the  Govern- 


APPENDIX  C 


271 


ment  since  the  trial  that  he  had  entered  into  an  agreement 
with  the  German  Government,  which  explicitly  provided  that 
the  brigade  which  he  was  trying  to  raise  from  among  the  Irish 
soldier  prisoners  might  be  employed  in  Egypt  against  the 
British  Crown. 

Those  among  the  Irish  soldiers,  prisoners  in  Germany,  who 
resisted  Casement's  solicitations  of  disloyalty  were  subjected 
to  treatment  of  exceptional  cruelty  by  the  Germans.  Some 
of  them  have  since  been  exchanged  as  invalids,  and  have  died 
in  this  country,  regarding  Casement  as  their  murderer. 

The  suggestion  that  Casement  left  Germany  for  the  purpose 
of  trying  to  stop  the  Irish  rising  was  not  raised  at  the  trial, 
and  is  conclusively  disproved,  not  only  by  the  facts  there 
disclosed,  but  by  further  evidence  which  has  since  become 
available. 

Another  suggestion  that  Casement  was  out  of  his  mind  is 
equally  without  foundation.  Materials  bearing  on  his  mental 
condition  were  placed  at  the  disposal  of  his  counsel,  who  did 
not  raise  the  plea  of  insanity.  Casement's  demeanour  since 
his  arrest,  and  throughout  and  since  his  trial,  gave  no  ground 
for  any  such  defence,  and,  indeed,  was  sufficient  to  disprove  it. 


o 


lit  > 


HOT  CIRCULA  i  J 


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